Just in Time

Just in Time

(“And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near.” Ephesians 2:17)

It is no disgrace to hear the morning gloires open
to the slowing sun. It is still the grayest of days and,
like sifted sugar, the snow sits atop the foothills.
With our mouths full of wonder we could have
second-guessed every word. There was something
human
about the message that graced our anxious waiting.
From parallel planes we had carried the animosity
of the ages. How would this announcement take us
from our place to the other with the river blocking our paths?
We were gauged by the notice we took that the shorelines
had changed.

We both awoke at dawn with time zones between us;
We heard the song with same ears we had used to
berate the far country we thought we knew.
We had stubbed our toes on the concrete drama
of religious dogma. We had tried all this before with
no one listening. We toed the party line and never
tried to find the common thread that ran from one
life
to another. We were chosen and they were neither
blessed nor corrupted. They were just born that way.
But their very touch, as seldom as it occurred, could
drive us to constant ritual cleansing of our souls.

At odds, the new song kept trying to break through the
tangled catechism we both held on to. I worship this
and you worship that, and we both end up condemning
the practices we called idolatry. We stretched our
definitions to include the final judgement we knew
they deserved.

But at one point of time, in one sphere intervening
and filling everything, we heard the words that we
were afraid to speak. We heard a question that seemed
to answer everything.

We traveled toward each other, following the air waves
that had finally caught our attention. And we arrived
near noon,
just in time to see the marigolds glow.

UnMasked

UnMasked

(”For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9)

I hardly knew what to do when the gift was dropped off
outside my door. Should I open it; what was it there for?
I set it inside on top of a coffee table and went about my
day, making lunch, drinking wine, and wondering how much time
I had before I heard the famous voice that thundered everything
into place.

But the noises outside and the people who cried
that justice looked sad were in the streets today.
There was no peace from the camouflaged recruits who
pummeled observers of their over-privileged gunfire.
Hard on the way, they lay another one upon the concrete
as if they are simply punching bags for practice.

It was all on video, for those who would watch it.
It all was heard, though many refused it.
It was unlicensed aggravation and children kidnapped
from outside their schools. It was a nurse to veterans
being beaten for pointing his phone at the officers of fear.

But thousands showed up and broke the silence. Thousands
sang songs of resistance and beat their drums above the anguish
laying low and loud. They are trauma-breakers assisting the wounded.

And still the gift sits unopened, its contents hidden underneath
layers of paper and perforations. We have thrown away the wealth
of harmony paid at such a price the universe trembles. The estranged
are invited to join the sanity that is richer and offers reunion
to armies of boots on the ground. Unwrap the present and join
the mass apology for the pain created by the masked unrighteous
ways of hardened lawless masquerading as officers of the peace.

The Joy was Hiding

The Joy was Hiding

(“The God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. May the good will of our Lord Jesus be with you!” Romans 16:20)

I would have written this early but my chest sometimes
feels like lead, keeping out the joyful rays and hiding the
love inside. The quiet interludes I hoped for created an abscess
that only echoed the sounds of unknowing.

So let me tell you this, if I can tell you anything you do not
already know,
I love you till the end of time little one,
I carry you close from last light until dawn.

I will confess that some of my days were eroded by
thoughts turned untrue by fear, the way a child first
climbs a stair. The joy was hiding and I am sorry.
But I extended my hand for you, my finger to catch
hold of you and you took to the stairs with a giggle.

I take everything so seriously. I took it all too hard.
I blamed myself and never felt the freedom to laugh like the rain.
I thought there had to be a chorus and refrain to
cut the darkness overnight. Now, as I’m writing this,
later and better,
I am ready to let giggles turn the tables on all my
cognitive biases that blamed everything on some
present darkness that held me tighter than my
knotted shoes.

I am writing this now, seriously engaging with joy,
and willing to laugh inappropriately if the situation calls
for it.
There are more devils expelled by laughter than ever those
with weeping tears.

Letters Flying Everywhere

Letters Flying Everywhere

(“You keep completely safe the people who maintain their faith, for they trust in you.” Isaiah 36:3)

Days before the latest dawn
the thunderstorms snuck in under the blue.
They left the sky cleaned and calm.
We could breathe again, unsullied by the
rain that washed the dread away. The breeze
was easy.

There were echoes of war, distant booms of
violence that crowded those who were listening.
We heard what we had never heard. We begged
for streets free from combat boots and full of
summer sandals shopping for new colors to wear.

I want to write with words wrapped around bombs
exploding purposefully with letters flying everywhere.
I want a conflagration of vowels spinning between the
pages and consonants so crisp they smell of burnt bacon.

After that I’ll write about trees and flowers again,
about bees and buzzes, about sunlight and breezes.
I find my mind so occupied like an overpour at the bar,
that I barely can mutter intelligent sentences.

But look around me and scout the extravagant lyrics
unconnected to the chorus or bridge. Please excuse the mess;
I was just given the arrangement a day ago and my fingers
haven’t traced their melody long enough to make sense.
But once I get my cadence down, once I memorize the breaks,
you’ll be able to dance right up to the final coda and laugh
that the night was over so soon.

Until then, we need words that ignite over night skies to
keep us in line. We need more rhymes to teach us the
daily grind for peace we never knew we would fight.

Peace and its Possibilities

Peace and its Possibilities

(“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:14)

The fog disguised the trees as giants,
and made the ashen roof seem like snow.
The horn blew from the river below to
warn the ships and wake the captains.
We did not plan on rising this early.

But the fog lifted as the angels came down,
the stars blinked fire escapes and the moon
directed it beams below.

To be clear, I had never seen an angel.
Never felt an invisible presence so near to me,
speaking so clear to me,
singing with words that drove the fear from me.

To be honest, I have never met a king.
Never stood and bowed before him beneath his marbled throne.
There was a gulf between his pretentious palace
and my pallet beneath the stars.
Working in the fields, we all heard what the angels spoke,
a king born like a pauper, a ruler starting life in the livestock’s
feeding trough.

We told stories once the sun had set, started the fires to keep us warm,
walked among the sheep, feeding and watering them, and watched
as they dozed to sleep.

There was a second of silence. We took one breath in unison and then
the skies exploded; the air crystalized the praises that echoed
across the plain. Angels upon angels, wings stirring the sky and
we heard the words from outside of us and inside of us, we were
one with the song and the singers.

Could this peace free us from tyranny; could it release us from
bondage? Could it build something better than enslavement,
unfetter us from legions of oppression?

We had no choice, given the choreography in the skies,
to seek out this baby king and ponder everything the angels had told us.

We saw him, bundled tightly, his mother lifting him to her breast and
we thought he was unremarkable. And we thought we could be wrong.
And we sought to understand it, and we hoped to believe it for as
long as we could.
And we went back to our flocks scratching our heads but still
humming the song the angels sang about peace and its possibilities
because of this infant king.

The Steam May Rise

The Steam May Rise

(“Peace in place of bitterness! You have preserved my life from the pit of destruction; behind your back you cast all my sins.” Isaiah 38:17)

Tonight, the steam may rise from
wet pavement warmed by tropical sun.
Tonight ice may form on heated roofs
to melt away near noon.
Tonight pipes might freeze, children shiver,
moms wonder how soon someone will deliver
the next cord of wood to heat her leaky home.

I might put on a movie tonight.
I might think of calling someone too late who
is my age
and lives three time zones away. They used to live
in my neighborhood. We have become elongated,
whisked like dancing pellets of sleet.

Tonight, someone may dream and wake in peace
who dreads the pillow every night. Knives and
sharpened tongues
have kept her away for years. When her eyelids close
the haunting begins. She would be rid of them. But
dreams are slow and deep. She needs something fierce
to open tomorrow, something strong to lock the past.

I might have shrimp tonight.
I might write, I might wish the ocean was nearer
and I could hear how waves buzz no matter the time of year.

Tonight may narrow my options,
tomorrow may open them wide.
Yesterday I composed a new song,
today I forgot it all.
Tomorrow may offer me a self-portrait
I painted once to remember who I am.

Or perhaps
we can all arise again.

A Cantata of Peace

A Cantata of Peace

(“A child will be born for us. A son will be given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. He will be named: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6)

After further review and looking everywhere,
high and low,
center and none,
in ballads and marches,
in wooden crosses and iron wills,
I honestly
find more question marks than before.

Today I sat without wind or dizzying propositions,
definitions of cause and effect,
and hoped (an explosive hope)
for better ears. A friend hides underground
while missiles whistle overhead.

And what is this song that moves the ground beneath our feet,
that pierces the stars until angels cannot restrain the chorale
that wraps the waiting world
face-to-face,
with an overture too resplendent to miss?

But we do miss it. We do continue staking our claim.
We do see the fault lines drawn between this
and
that,
and are blind where that and this
contain the first atoms of breath, contain the
alpha and omega. We do miss the
restoration of things.

With a mighty hand extended through
infant arms,
I cannot ignore the cantata of peace.

In the Silence Between Thoughts

In the Silence Between Thoughts

In the silence between thoughts,
the milliseconds of listening; that
is where the peace is found. Unaccompanied music
swings us like leaves in the wind.

I know the endless narration, the novella we never
meant to write. But it is fiction, it is not your story
today.

Find someone to read it to you anew;
I will start at the beginning with a new
chapter every day. I will remind you that
those unmanaged words like rocks, the barbs
of fiery poison,
do not bear your name. They are not the holy space
where you hear secrets so sacred they are
barely breathed to life within you. I will
hold your tears, offer you the palms of my hands,
and if you need,
to let you cry again.

You have been scribbled on too long. Now
breathe your name slowly. Hear your own voice
tell the wounded child
you are not at fault. You are not less, you are not
minus in a world
of aggressive arithmetic.

In the sun, between the silences,
imbued with blue, let the artist paint your portrait.
Stilly. Sit within the loving gaze of all who
treasure the moments they spend with you.

In the purple night, separated from the blistering
rage that demands your perfection,
see the blinking above, the caress of cool grass
under your feet,

And let your name be more precious than even
saints can imagine. Let the namer of all things
call you like a mother rings the dinner bell.
Let all the wonders of you
seep in like a late summer waterfall.

Between the songs, unafraid of love,
let the rewriting begin. Your story.
Your song. Your name.
Your eyes and your lungs
steeped in the sacredness of simply
being. The perfume of heaven,
the shoulder to lay your head upon,
the stream washing your feet in the
silence between waking and dreams.

We Did Not Wear Armor Well

We Did Not Wear Armor Well

(“Go in peace. We have taken an oath in the Lord’s name to be friends forever.” 1 Samuel 20:42b)

There were bottles of cabernet, a well-used kitchen table,
a couch shared with dogs and teenagers and talk that could
extend for hours.
We shared the wine those times when the days were thicker than
mud and we resigned ourselves to well-worn company protected
by in-house
understanding that the world could not enter in.
And so we would begin, whether from shame or fear,
to share what we hid most often outside those weary walls.
Occasionally we socialized (Sunday’s of course, after all,
I was a pastor). But we were clear from the beginning:
Friendship was why we were together.
But at a banquet, a wedding reception, bingo, or groups
of more than a dozen,
we were always the first to leave. We loved every person attending,
but social anxiety had the last word far too often for us both.
They said we were well-liked; we did not believe it.

Neither one of was very brave, though we shared our opinions readily;
God knows, we both had a trove of accumulated knowledge that we
could dispense at will. We did not wear armor well, sometimes
the sunlight was all that sent us
seeking each other’s company when our personal
darkness stole the day from us.

We lived only a block apart, but now hundreds of miles away,
the same friendship carried me for months, but awkwardly.
We once sparred gently with our wine at the table,
but now, unable to see your face, to hear the laugh in your voice,
I fear, still without armor, I let a priceless gift gather dust on the shelf.

With so many miles and years between us now,
with the place the path has led me now,
with former friends who ignore me now,
(in their cases, they could not understand my shift)
I still long for a place, a person, to sift through the
unwinding of life. When I have failed, I have feared
all the more.
But, though far in time and space, the door between us, sweet friend,
is open. My best friend here,
a retired Lutheran minister, now as liberal as I am,
would complete an amicable trinity.

My Invisible Skin

 My Invisible Skin

(“I’ve said these things to you so that you will have peace in me. In the world you have distress. But be encouraged! I have conquered the world.” John 16:33)

It isn’t guilt these days,
it’s the suffering, the sheer pain of squeezing
the most moments from each slant of the sun.
Do I miss friends who no longer understand?

I once had a plastic model, a man with invisible skin.
Inside were the organs: stomach and liver and arteries and veins.
I never learned much from him, or from the frogs I dissected in school.
All their insides blended in dirty wash-water grey.
It is fortunate I am not a physician.

At any rate I wish there was a picture window
to my soul
and it could be viewed dispassionately,
entirely undressed.
I would no longer need to rehearse my
answers, no longer hide what gathered dust
in the rafters. And I would be happy to sit still
for every x-ray snapshot.

Scolding never healed a headache,
surprise inspections alter few behaviors.
If you could see through my plastic skin
would you dissect my present from my past?
Would you think my last iteration was more
tattered than the first?

In the end it matters little,
though surgeons have whittled away at
a few of my organs.
My within remains intact,
my invisible skin only covers
a mosaic whose colors sometimes change
but whose essence has remained the same.

Skip the Explanations for Now

 Skip the Explanations for Now

(“Let the peace of Christ be in control in your heart (for you were in fact called as one body to this peace) and be thankful.” Colossians 3:15)

Skip the explanations for now,
the commentary can wait.
Tell us the story, front to back,
inside out. Don’t leave out a detail.
Give us every quote.
Tell us how the budding leaves
narrated the next call to prayer.
Remind us how the grass underfoot
was the grace sowed into the tiny universe
we see from our fields.

Did you meet someone on the way?
Did she smile, did she dance?
Did the old man stop and ask you
to take a chance at smiling again?
(I believe I have met him before.)
Tell us about the dogs, one a baby Labrador,
the other a vanilla and chocolate mix;
tell us how they ran at you, how they
startled you,
and how they pranced and played as if
you were the happiest part of their day.

Tell us about the children in the back row
talking
while the teacher wrote on the board.
Tell us about the muzzle flashes, the screams
that pierced their half-grown bodies. Tell us
why, if you know,
a boy, a legal man, needed weapons of war;
why anyone would want one, why anyone would
conclude the rights to own it outweigh the
right to keep on breathing.

Tell it, and skip the excuses for now,
the legislation cannot wait.
Can you feel the full mass of every
massive wound effect as each round
tore into flesh? Tell us what you heard,
tell us what you think, tell us why weapons
are called
Peacemakers

While the children of God wait for the
Prince of peace to rewrite the story.

Tell us, from start to end, why we do not
begin just now.

Only Broken Rules

 

Only Broken Rules

(“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid.” John 14:27)

It is time for us to go now,
we can talk along the way. The
walls are ready to implode now,
and firelight has nothing left to say.

I cannot wait to see you again,
sometime before my next life crisis.
The troubles might try to drag you down;
the demons fancy a tour of my garden
planted yesterday so yellow and carefully.

There are enough people to blame,
enough weekends to discover the schemes
of failures on the outside of the rooms we constructed
to protect our thin-shelled eggs of ideas.
What seems an onslaught was
just a summer rain last year.

It is time for us to go now,
we can walk up and down the streets. The
walls have tumbled, muddy sheetrock,
and the moonless night swirls like sludge from
a prairie oil derrick. Can we stand still while it,
glacial and black, fills every hole and crack?

I may never see you again,
it might be because of my last life crisis.
The troubles dragged us down as we estimated
the cost of a friendship like ours.
The demons took their seats to see whether
wildflowers and tulips could thrive in the same
garden plot.

I know who you blame, and I know who I suspect,
though none more guilty than myself. What if peace
is what we expect, clean air that thins the grimy night
and lets us dance again, walk the hills again, smoke cigars
and get uneven tans again?

It is time now; the walls are shambles. If you hear me
call your name,
meet me in the rubble. You remember the table and
golden chairs where we once ate sandwiches together?
The demons have all gone home, the troubles have expired,
only our memories keep us apart,
only broken rules can mend us again.

I Want to Write about Beachballs

 

I Want to Write about Beachballs

“In peace and justice he walked with Me...” Malachi 2:6b)

I want to write about beachballs in church today,
I want to write about babies crying.
I want to write about bad breath in church today,
I want to write about old men waiting.

I want to write about a kingdom of love,
a gathering of bepatched people under a tent.
I want to write about a kingdom of peace,
a tribe without a name, having spent every bias.

I want to talk about questions in church today,
I want to talk about wondering doubt.
I want to talk about kitchens in church today,
I want to talk about new bread broken.

I want to talk about a nation of peace,
a brewing storm with nothing but nourishing rain.
I want to talk about a kingdom of love,
a table without end, open, and amen.

I want to write about birds and bears in church today,
I want to write about the society of friends.
I want to write about children who run,
who think fun gathers around their feet,
I want to write about the greeting that always means
stay as long as you want
and longer
because none of us are going away.

I want to write about a new menu to enjoy,
I want to write about exploration today.
I want to write about a new sound to rejoice,
I want to write about picnic parksounds today.

I want to write about why
we measure anything at all
when the pegs of our tent have been stretched
so far
that nothing can be seen but the horizon.

War No More

 

War No More

(“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward mankind.” Luke 2:14)

 

You were alerted that the sun would rise early the next day,
yet you kept your eyes averted and knelt under shadowy rocks.
How could you miss the noise and thunder,
the voices lifted in wonder, the wings heating the embers
like bellows in fiery love.

And yet, concerted, you asked others to join in your
announcements of doom from stage to stage,
field to field, church to church, and age to age
until we all believed the story was as dark as you
preached it. We read the books, we watched the movies,
we believed the demons, we waited while you continued
unabated in your
end time and end earth talk
of bloody wars and civil conflicts
and reversing elections. God must love you
more than the rest of us to let you in on a thousand
foggy secrets.

You diverted the river of peace; you inverted the love
meant for worldwide jazz combos improvising on
perfection and light. You missed the diamonds
gifted to you in joy, you cast off curses with the
remnants of coal.

I reject your dust and ashes.

There are melodies only heaven can compose,
each solo a thread of the tapestry,
each voice a stone in an eternal mosaic.
But you can’t hear them, you’ve perverted them
into dirges that hang on one dirty note.

While God courts us, we flirt with machines of war.
With peace as the promise we keep drawing our swords
as if one more lopped-off ear would bring a golden age again.

Lay down your burdens, lay them down, down, down;
lay them down by the riverside to

Study war no more.

The Throne Among Us

 

The Throne Among Us

(“For a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us. He shoulders responsibility and is called Wonderful Adviser, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6)

“Pass on by and don’t say a word,”
they reply when they repeat the lies of violence
and then turn with a smiley face on their sticker heart
they have pasted on their foreheads.

Why do you leave us waiting without wings?
Why do you see darkness when the light fills everything?
Why do you leave us to wonder
how you came to your conclusions?
Facts are facts, not your affection for sledgehammer delusions.

Oh, speak my Prince,
and move upon these streets of stone.

Oh, seek my friend,
the truth that will not bend to the seismic intentions
of words you attribute to angels
but smell of demonic design.

Oh, rain my Prince,
upon these barren lands where we paint our
rock gardens green because nothing ever grows.

Oh, listen friend,
to the streams that wake us,
the rain that soaks us,
the sun as it coaxes us to
open like roses in the face of love.

Let go your arrows, empty your quiver,
spend your words with liberal fascination
that the throne above is now the
throne among us
and it calls us
to speak more like
the Prince of Peace.

We Shall Play Again

We Shall Play Again

(“The peace of God is much greater than the human mind can understand. This peace will keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7)

For Laurie

There is a swirling of conversation that can connect
two people more closely than
another one thousand miles closer.
And still, in the whirlwind of the mind,
there are only spoken words, inflections heard
and occasional nuggets of gold in the bottom of the pan.

If I write that I am going to write stream-of-consciousness,
do you still understand and have I accomplished my mission?
There was a time I did not care, and it did not scare me either,
to combine images of spaceships and a pretty girl’s hair. Now,
though I’m not all that proper,
still I want people to go “hmm” before they go “ohh.”

Sometimes one talk takes the place of a dozen therapy sessions,
(do you know how hard it is to find a therapist you can trust?)
I must confess, that’s why I see a therapist and not a priest.
I want to talk about myself, not our thoughts about God,
or your thoughts about how I’m doing with God. (How would you
know, child of clay and sand, sparks and spit?)
But my unconscious knows something I had yet to admit:
“I don’t believe in God anymore.”

I knew you wouldn’t shrink, which expanded my words.
The background was gray and green, a shadow scene with
my body stuck between standing and tottering. And then I said,
to everyone who was listening: “I don’t believe in God anymore.”
Oh, did I tell you it was a dream?

But that is why I called you, to bring you into a space that
stunned me; a waking gasp at “anymore.” And everyone heard
every word, every firm statement of final disbelief.

I was not relieved.

I once thought words, phrases and questions were sent by
strong concentration, fasting and sweating prayer. I also knew
they could come from nowhere.
So, days later, my disbelief haunted the days and I read a book,
(perhaps on civil rights in the 60s, perhaps a bio of Socrates)
and an arrow pierced my mind right behind the word “anymore.”

“What if now, God believes in me?”

II.

The crazy trumpets broke the night like the saxophones laughing;
but it was never the song, it was how I heard it.

So I take up the mandolin again, fingers swollen from aging,
and release the expectations of virtuosity. Sometimes it’s better
just to play.

Remember how I said the piano is my soulmate? Remember how
I said I did not have to think? The place for peace is the place that
belief has recused itself from me. An opening, not a void, for
the quiet voice that never said much to me. And now doubt,
(that devilish and scattered word) has become the very earth in which
a new trust has begun.

We shall play again, fiddle, guitar or melodion.

This Dialogue

This Dialogue

(“Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’” Luke 10:5)

If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to open
this dialogue
again.

I do not need to win.

Your eyes showed the fear within,
and naked anger
bursting
from too many unfinished songs.

If we had it to do all over again, I’d applaud every
lyric and verse
unsung.
I would not need the tune.

Sooner than later I’d like to meet you
for coffee and
first rites,
unscripted with advice set aside.

Just after I return, I’d like to swing
my front door wide
open,
and let within every north and south,
every fair and ill wind

that simply needs to rest on my floor,
on my couch, with silence or without.
Sanctuary.

The Extinction of Flattery

The Extinction of Flattery

(“Many plans are in the human heart, but the advice of the Lord will endure.” Proverbs 19:21)

There is more flint in our hearts than we know,
and I admit my own stony intrusions.
Encrusted upon our purest plans
are every whim and whisper we have impolitely shouted
or secretly hidden under muddy fields in fear.

You proclaimed what would come to pass,
told the man he would win election,
You proclaimed it was God’s command,
God’s purpose, God’s eternal plan.
But the election came and went, as all do,
and the fellow you uttered you confidence over,
fell far flat of your prophecy.
You told him, didn’t you?
You emboldened him, didn’t you?
But, you were wrong, weren’t you?

There is more me in my ministry than I like to admit,
more desire for notice, more smiles from past beneficiaries
who received such benefit that we knew it must be god (with
my name in parenthesis, but still spoken, please.)

But you proclaimed a yes that became a no. You
loved the center, you loved the words you thought were
fool proof;
but we are the fools, the fragile, the clowns who fall over
our shoes.
So, when yes was no, did you go to the fellow and confess
that you somehow got it wrong? That you spoke too soon?
That your ego was a big as the rest of ours, and it ballooned at
just the wrong moment?

Doors sometimes close without another window opening.
Mountains sometimes remain after long seasons of praying.
Miles separate the wish from fulfillment and trials dam the river
we swore would flow forever.

But there is a long road, sometimes solitary, most times narrow,
that edges us toward the extinction of flattery. There is a road,
a royal one,
that follows the wadis through the barren and red striations
of rock and sand laid down ages ago.

Today a door closed. No one proclaimed it, no one laid hands
on me
at all.

But the road still calls (though today I can venture only this scrawl)
and I’ll claim correctness less often with some help I hope,
lay my soul down in peace.

I Am Sending You

I Am Sending You

“Then Jesus said to them again, ‘May you have peace. As the Father has sent Me, I also am sending you.’” John 20:21

Can you imagine the fear, the despondency and lack of hope that Jesus’ followers felt following his crucifixion? They had been “all in”. Many had left their livelihood three years before to follow this wandering teacher. Over their internship they slowly understood that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the one who would deliver Israel and set up the kingdom of God.

If we can stop for a moment; consider this. We human beings only understand the world around us through one faculty; our malleable and fallible brains. And our brains receive information through our senses, filtered through culture, teaching and experience. In other words, just because we think something is true, we ought to be open to the possibility we may be mistaken.

The disciples were not mistaken about Jesus’ identity, but they did get the nature of his kingdom wrong. That is quite natural. The only kingdoms they knew were what they had experienced, what their brains had observed and heard about. So, certainly the kingdom of God would be similar to what they knew. Yes, a good God would rule, but, the only way they understood “rule” is by authority and force. They were soon to be surprised.

Jesus’ death did not square with what they “knew”. We can understand their reasoning. “If Jesus is ushering in the rule of God, then he will defeat our enemies, show his power, and ascend a throne that none can overthrow.” Seeing him suffer at the hands of both religious and political rulers, they must have fallen deeply in despair. In some ways, Peter’s exclamation, “I never knew him”, may have held some truth.

But Sunday morning Mary Magdalene ran to Simon Peter and John with mind-boggling news. The stone to Jesus’ tomb was rolled away and she worried, “They have taken the Lord out of the grave. We do not know where they have put Him.”

Peter and John run to the grave and see it just as Mary said. They saw the linen cloths Jesus had been wrapped in, but the white cloth that had wrapped his head was rolled up and lying by itself. Even then, they did not understand that Jesus had risen from the dead. (Remember, all they have are their limited brains to make sense of it all.)

The two disciples went back to their homes. That’s an amazing thought. Jesus is alive, but they are still slowly taking it all in. They simply go back home. But Mary stayed by the grave, weeping. And it is there that Jesus appears to her. He instructs her to tell his brothers: “I will go up to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God!” She hurries away to tell the disciples what she has seen and heard.

(A quick aside. Recently a well-known evangelical leader had unkind things to say about a female Bible teacher. Those in the audience applauded his snide remark. He is among some who think women have no right to the pulpit or teaching ministries. I wonder if he would have listened to Mary.)

Later that evening, as the disciples are gathered behind locked doors because they are afraid, Jesus appears to them. His first words are, “Peace to you.” The disciples immediately react with joy as Jesus shows them his wounded hands and side.

And once more he offers them peace, saying, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”

That phrase should make us stop, be quiet, and consider: How did the Father send Jesus?

Remember, the disciples had the kingdom of God all wrong. Jesus’ resurrection shows he has indeed won the victory. But sin and death were defeated, not by force, not by armies, not by hard-fisted legal enforcement, but by suffering and death. The kingdom of God has not changed. We are sent to be men and women who are willing to give ourselves on behalf of others, not tell others how to behave.

The Father sent Jesus to the less fortunate. He went to the poor, the sick, the blind and the “sinners”. He did not condescend, as if they needed to prove themselves before He brought healing and forgiveness. Let us go in the same way, we are all on a level playing field.

The Father sent Jesus to those who could not give back. Who could offer Jesus anything that he did not already possess? He gave hope to the hopeless. He healed, even when some did not return to say, “Thank you.” Let us go in the same way, not looking for people to behave just because we have given. Let us simply give.

The Father sent Jesus to go out of his way for others. Remember the woman at the well? She was a Samaritan. Jesus had to take a less traveled route to meet with a single woman in need. Why do we expect people to come to a church building once a week, where they feel out of place? Let us go out of our way to share the Good News of God’s kingdom of mercy and love right where people are.

God is not afraid of humanity. Are we fully aware of that? The most degraded heart does not scare God or keep him away. God loves humanity so much He became one of us! So, why in the world would we ever avoid someone who seems different than us? Why would we not embrace the homeless, the hungry, the addict, the rebel. God embraced them already when Jesus took on the same human flesh and blood.

When Roman Catholics celebrate the Mass in Latin today, the last words the priest or deacon speak are “Ite missa est.” Translated, it means: “Go, the [congregation] is sent.” The people are told, in so many words, “You’ve worshiped, celebrated Christ in Communion and heard the Word, now go forth as His ambassadors in all the earth; be that bread that is broken for a hungry world.”