My beloved mentor Jeff can curate a space with such grace and elegance that I often wondered if he missed his calling to be an interior decorator rather than a priest and bishop. His home was exquisite, liturgical spaces inviting and his office—a sanctuary.
Imagine my surprise one day as I sat in his office and noticed that he had a broken shard of pottery sitting in a central location on his credenza. I was beyond curious.
Jeff’s daughter Katherine was around 5 years old when she came home dancing and excited —she could hardly contain herself! She couldn’t wait to see her daddy. She ran to greet to him and give him the gift that she had so carefully crafted for him—a little piece of pottery. Skipping to meet him, she tripped and fell, breaking her delicate creation into many pieces. Oh, how she wept! Jeff’s heart broke in an instant.
As any parent will tell you, having children is like having your own heart run around in someone else’s body. That’s okay sweetie, that’s okay—Daddy can fix it! No you can’t! She wailed all the harder. Try as he might, my dear friend could not fix this daughter’s 5 year-old heart ache. She cried and cried inconsolable. Completely bereft.
It was Lisa, Jeff’s beloved who had the wisdom to soothe sweet Katherine. Its broken. Lisa acknowledged. Holding her daughter’s pain and tears, embracing her quietly for a long time until the tears stopped. Then Lisa said,
Let’s pick up the pieces and see which one we like best.
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It was not that long ago, I was sitting in a worship committee meeting, convinced that we didn’t have much to talk about. As we sat together, somehow it came up. Someone in the committee spoke our deepest truth and sorrow: we miss those who haven’t come back after pandemic.
As we sat talking about the many people who aren’t here now, the grief in the room was palpable.
We are different beloved. We are changed. We are changing.
The psalm tells us today that the nations are in an uproar and that the people utter empty threats. Why? We come to fear and anxiety because we abhor the flux, transition and the liminality of our being. We yearn to hold on and preserve life’s fleeting moments of joy and bliss. We cling to the past that we reminisce—the good ol’ days that were somehow better.
We are Peter on that mountaintop beloved—wanting to take a selfie of that perfect moment in time.
But we can’t stay there. That’s the heartbreak, beloved. We can’t stay there. We can’t cling.
As Christ followers, we are called to be agents of transformation—to pick up the broken pieces and see which ones we like best. That’s what church does. Your vestry has a plan to invite people who have fallen away from the rhythm of church and invite them to come a party this spring—to see if we can invite them back into this community. To be honest, I love this idea but I am also aware that people may not come back to us. We may not be able to knit our community back together as it was because so much has changed.
And I know—that is absolute heart break for us. For the Christ follower, we have a model for heartbreak. We have Mary who sat weeping at the tomb. The deepest reality of our existence beloved is this: the one who weeps is the one who sees. The one who weeps is the one who sees.
And what is it that Mary sees? She sees what the boys on the mountain had a foretaste of today—she sees the Resurrection!
This upcoming week, we will begin our 90-day retreat of Lent and Easter. We will be shepherded from death into life once again. The deepest reality of being a Christ follower is that we are agents of transformation. We are called to the hard work of letting go and letting God change us utterly and completely.
Oh God—change?! Seriously??? Don’t you know, preacher, the old joke about us Episcopalians?
How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb? Two—one to change it while the other says, Change?! Change?! My grandmother gave that lightbulb!!
Why are the nations in an uproar? Why are people muttering empty threats?
Because we are changing and we can’t cling to what once was. That’s what Lent and Easter teaches us.
We are like trapeze artists beloved—called to let go in midair, leap into the nothingness and fly. That’s what transfiguration looks like. Letting go into Lent, into death, into life, into Easter!
That’s our tradition—Dying and rising! Our tradition is not about preservation and clinging to the past—our tradition is dynamic, rooted and very much alive.
Would if beloved we saw everything we did in church as an experiment?
We get so hung up on failing because we are afraid. Afraid that we will let God down, the let the church down. But the deepest and truest reality is that in the Kingdom of God there is no failure but rather what did we learn? What did we learn?
Everything breaks, beloved. Everything. Our tradition teaches us this as we BREAK the bread each and every week. To share the body of Christ we must first break it.
Jesus says to ALL-- take my heart make it BREAK.
It is in the breaking that we find new life.
And let me tell you—God is like a mother soothing her baby with wisdom, holding her saying, its broken. Let’s pick up the pieces and find the best one. If you didn’t know, beloved, God will use ANYTHING that God can—even the shattered shameful pieces of our messy lives. If you don’t believe me, just wait until Good Friday.
Its broken beloved.
Let’s pick up the pieces and see which ones we like best.
Amen.