Was Jesus raised from the dead

    The essential Easter question

What do you say

    For it really matters not what I think

My opinion is for my spiritual journey

    I may not need the answer you do

This is the trouble with everyone raising up

    With the same answer

If one person strays from the religious line

    The whole pyramid of faith collapses

The only solid foundation is freedom to believe

    To believe what makes sense to our spiritual needs

Now we can build on this

    We can learn from others’ insights

    We don’t have to fight the fight of same answer faith

    We can roll the stones away from our tombs

    We can watch Jesus dance forth

    Taking our hand into a new life

    With new resurrected thoughts

Was Jesus raised from the dead

    What say you

My God My God why have You forsaken me

    Jesus’ honest suffering statement

My God My God why have You forsaken me

   Our honest suffering statement

      Spoken seven months after Katrina

We tire of worshiping in the Fellowship Hall

    It doesn’t feel like Church

       I can’t hear because the sound system is inadequate

Our homes are not back together

    We are still working with Insurance Companies

       How long oh Lord

We feel forgotten by those in power

    Why rebuild New Orleans rings in our hearts

       Spoken by people with an attitude about the South

We feel hopeless with those who are here to help

    They seem to miss the point

       Of what it feels like to be recovering from Katrina

Have You heard enough God

   What’s that You say

       You understand

I want to cry God

   I want to be held God

What’s that You say

    Come to You

It feels like the time between Good Friday and Easter

   Death is everywhere

     But signs of possibility arise

Work Campers arrive from around the country

   Gifts of funds and quilts come at the right moment

You don’t say don’t feel this way 

   We feel we can live in this unknown

Into Your Hands I commit my post Katrina life

Mary had a little baby

   She wrapped it in a blanket of Love

Joseph had a little baby

   He wrapped it in a teaching of Love

God had a little baby

   God wrapped it in you and me

What a great risk it is

   To turn the baby over to

      Mary, Joseph, you and me

What if we don’t care for it

   What if we ignore it

      What if we don’t hear correctly

It may turn into a mess

   We may not be able to fix it

      We may let God down

Birthing a baby is not easy

   There are no hard and fast rules

      Sometimes all we have is our inner spirit

But what if we fail

   Maybe then we will meet the true God

God doesn’t expect us to get it right

   God just expects us to get it

God had a little baby

   God wrapped it in you and me

Holy Week has always held a very special place in my heart.  I have often seen it as a smaller version of life.  We have the peak of people thinking we are the best.  We have the depth of people thinking we are the worse.  We have a meal with treasured loved ones with some loving us and others betraying us.  We have the sadness of our motives being misunderstood.  We have the heart broken feeling of wanting to love others and them not caring.    All of this is captured in God in our form.  In the midst of this the only constant in life is God’s Love and Faithfulness.

Like Jesus we are human and like Jesus we are Divine.  The tension between these two is called life and death.  We have one human foot in this life and one Divine foot in God’s World.  How do we walk in balance?  How did Jesus walk in balance is the answer.  He never got too high when people raved about him.  He never got too low when people thought he misrepresented God.  The outer life was hard.  Jesus was angry when they used the Temple for something other than God.  He was upset with Peter when he wanted Jesus to turn away from God’s Plan.  He was sad when he looked over God’s Holy City and they didn’t want to be holy.  He felt betrayed when someone he trusted turned him over to the authorities. He felt alone when he hung on the cross.  In each situation Jesus never denied his humanity.  He never told himself he shouldn’t feel this way or be this way.  Jesus truly walked with one foot in this life.  He was the Incarnation of God in this life.  You can not be the Incarnation of God if you are not human.

Often times we have been denied access to our humanness.  We are supposed to be spiritual without the human component.  We have been taught to deny our feelings and the needs of our body.  This leads to walking out of balance.  Our feelings and needs of our body, like Jesus’,  leads us back to God.  It offers us the balance we need.  It shows us how the one foot in God’s World gives us the ability to deal with our feelings, our body and this world.  The two work hand in hand.  This is why Katrina is such a good teacher for us.  If we stay with things as they were, houses still undone, a church building still gutted, our favorite restaurants still not opened or having to wait in those long lines, and on and on then we will miss God at God’s best.  God tells us to bring our feelings and our damaged worlds.  God says we are to do this to see what is constant – God’s Love.  It is not easy to bring life out of death, but God did it for Jesus and is doing it for us.  God laughed in the face of those who said life and buildings had to always be this way.  God is able to provide in ways we never thought possible.

The ultimate statement for balance is what Jesus said, “Into Your Hands I commit my Spirit.”  When He said that He wasn’t certain from a human perspective He would be raised.  From the spiritual perspective it was a done deal.  As we continue to say “Into Your Hands I commit my Spirit,” we are not certain our lives, homes and church will be rebuilt and paid for.  Like Jesus we will have to live in the tension of the not yet!  We know spiritually it is already done, but sometimes we forget which causes us to stumble.  Or we lose our balance and fall down by saying, “Oh I’m not worried, Real believers don’t worry.”  Holy Week is our time to live in the Already – God bringing new life out of death and living in the Not Yet – our lives and New Orleans not back together yet.  I invite us to spend the rest of Lent with these thoughts so we can grow in Easter’s spiritual/human teaching.