That's What She Said

What's one of the first things the post-Pentecost followers of Jesus did? They formed a committee. A committee that could get you killed. I kid you not. Read Acts 6 and 7, please. It's long, but worth it.

WWBD? "B" is for Barnabas -- the Son of Encouragement -- who makes decisions with the community of faith in the front of his mind. We could do that, couldn't we? Or maybe I choose instead to withhold part of myself while pretending to be all the way here, like Ananias and Sapphire. Don't worry -- nobody's been struck dead for doing that for almost 2,000 years. But still.

"Silver and gold have we none, but what we have we give to you..."

In the season of Eastertide, we're looking at how the earliest followers of Jesus got together to make a church. What did they mainly do? How did they mainly do it? We started with Peter and John, empowered by the resurrected Christ to heal... and go to jail. Acts 3, 4, and the last half of 5.

It's Mark's year to tell the gospel story, so we stuck to Mark 16:1-8 for our Easter reading. Not altogether satisfying, those terrorized women fleeing the tomb that way, no Jesus anywhere in sight. But we made the best of it.

Communion under wraps on the back table.

Jesus is hellbent on Jerusalem, kicking ass and taking names (Mark 11) right up until the moment when he doesn't (Mark 14-15). We meditated at length on the Jerusalem-Passion narratives, and then stopped to contemplate with the author of Hebrews: "For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the city gate in order to sanctify the people by his own blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured" (Hebrews 13:11-13).

For the last in our Lenten series (thanks be to God!) we sat with Psalm 73 and the reality that life isn't fair -- the wicked prosper, and I'm trying hard, and I'm still #notwinning. But maybe my self-absorbed feeling of #notwinning is a disposition God can work with. Imagine that.

Psalm 88. Ugh. Depression, anxiety, every form of emotional suffering we could think of. It's for real, and it doesn't mean you're faithless or weak. Indeed, "God is near to the brokenhearted," and maybe your broken heart is exactly the heart that God is looking for.

The colors of our sorrow: "WE have suffered from depression or sadness or whatever you call this." "WE have hurt ourselves physically for reasons we don't understand." "WE have taken prescription meds for emotional diagnoses." "WE have gotten help from therapists or counselors." "WE have contemplated suicide, or love someone who has died by suicide." Etc., etc. Every color, a shade of our grief. Michala said, "Look, it's all our shit. And it's so beautiful."

Youngster Czar Jess Schell, soon-to-be M.Div. Perkins (SMU), tackled the reality of loneliness and isolation, when your friends and neighbors and (maybe even) God have left you in the dust, or, as Jess says, "naked on the bathroom floor." Read Psalm 38, please. And have Psalm 23 on hand for the counter-testimony.

From the sketchbook of Paul Soupiest.

Psalm 102 evokes the pain and terror of dying. Can God really understand the SUCK of death? What if it seems like God doesn't?