Sunday, April 4th, 2021 (Easter Sunday)

“We are baffled” by Walter Brueggemann

Christ is Risen
He is risen indeed!
We are baffled by the very Easter claim we voice.
Your new life fits none of our categories.
We wonder and stew and argue,
and add clarifying adjectives like “spiritual” and “physical.”
But we remain baffled, seeking clarity and explanation,
we who are prosperous, and full and safe and tenured.
We are baffled and want explanations.
But there are those not baffled, but stunned by the news,
stunned while at minimum wage jobs;
stunned while the body wastes in cancer;
stunned while the fabric of life rots away in fatigue and despair;
stunned while unprosperous and unfull
and unsafe and untenured . . .
Waiting only for you in your Easter outfit,
waiting for you to say, “Fear not, it is I.”
Deliver us from our bafflement and our many explanations.
Push us over into stunned need and show yourself to us lively.
Easter us in honesty,
Easter us in fear;
Easter us in joy,
and let us be Eastered. Amen.

Happy Easter! Thank you for joining us on this Lenten journey! If you’d like to stay in touch and sign up for our email list, please contact us at brookmeade@comcast.net.

Saturday, April 3rd, 2021

“A Better Resurrection” by Christina Rossetti

I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb’d too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm’d with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish’d thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.

Friday, April 2nd, 2021 (Good Friday)

“The Way of Pain” by Wendell Berry

1.
For parents, the only way
is hard. We who give life
give pain. There is no help.
Yet we who give pain
give love; by pain we learn
the extremity of love.

2.
I read of Abraham’s sacrifice
the Voice required of him,
so that he led to the altar
and the knife his only son.
The beloved life was spared
that time, but not the pain.
It was the pain that was required.

3.
I read of Christ crucified,
the only begotten Son
sacrificed to flesh and time
and all our woe. He died
and rose, but who does not tremble
for his pain, his loneliness,
and the darkness of the sixth hour?
Unless we grieve like Mary
at His grace, giving Him up
as lost, no Easter morning comes.

4.
And then I slept, and dreamed
the life of my only son
was required of me, and I
must bring him to the edge
of pain, not knowing why.
I woke, and yet that pain
was true. It brought his life
to the full in me. I bore him
suffering, with love like the sun,
too bright, unsparing, whole.

Thursday, April 1st, 2021 (Maundy Thursday)

“Gethsemane” by Mary Oliver

The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.

The cricket has such splendid fringe on his feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.

Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe
the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move.
Maybe the lake far away, where once he walked
as on a blue pavement,
lay still and waited, wild awake.

Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be part of the story.

Wednesday, March 31st, 2021

“Psalm 22” (NIV version)

1
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
2
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest.
3
Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the one Israel praises.
4
In you our ancestors put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.
5
To you they cried out and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
6
But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
7
All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
8
“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
“let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
since he delights in him.”
9
Yet you brought me out of the womb;
you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
10
From birth I was cast on you;
from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
11
Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.
12
Many bulls surround me;
strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
13
Roaring lions that tear their prey
open their mouths wide against me.
14
I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted within me.
15
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death.
16
Dogs surround me,
a pack of villains encircles me;
they pierce my hands and my feet.
17
All my bones are on display;
people stare and gloat over me.
18
They divide my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment.
19
But you, Lord, do not be far from me.
You are my strength; come quickly to help me.
20
Deliver me from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dogs.
21
Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
save me from the horns of the wild oxen.
22
I will declare your name to my people;
in the assembly I will praise you.
23
You who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
24
For he has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.
25
From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows.
26
The poor will eat and be satisfied;
those who seek the Lord will praise him—
may your hearts live forever!
27
All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
will bow down before him,
28
for dominion belongs to the Lord
and he rules over the nations.
29
All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
those who cannot keep themselves alive.
30
Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.
31
They will proclaim his righteousness,
declaring to a people yet unborn:
He has done it!

Tuesday, March 30th, 2021

“Silent God” by Edwina Gateley

This is my prayer—
That, though I may not see,
I be aware
Of the Silent God
Who stands by me.
That, though I may not feel,
I be aware
Of the Mighty Love
Which doggedly follows me.
That, though I may not respond,
I be aware
That God—my Silent, Mighty God,
Waits each day.
Quietly, hopefully, persistently.
Waits each day and through each night
For me.
For me—alone.

Monday, March 29th, 2021

“When sorrow comes” by A. Powell Davies

When sorrow comes, let us accept it simply, as a part of life.
Let the heart be open to pain; let it be stretched by it.
All the evidence we have says that this is the better way.
An open heart never grows bitter.
Or if it does, it cannot remain so.
In the desolate hour, there is an outcry; a clenching of the hands upon emptiness; a burning pain of bereavement; a weary ache of loss.
But anguish, like ecstasy, is not forever.
There comes a gentleness, a returning quietness, a restoring stillness.
This, too, is a door to life.

Here, also, is a deepening of meaning – and it can lead to dedication;
a going forward to the triumph of the soul, the conquering of the wilderness.
And in the process will come a deepening inward knowledge that in the final reckoning,
All is well.

Sunday, March 28th, 2021 (Palm Sunday)

“Passiontide” by Michael Coffey

And so the time comes to let you go again
like Mary at her weeping station
like Peter in his running shameful cry
like Mary Magdalene’s sad watchful eye
like the soldier’s gasping epiphany
like Joseph gently laying your body down and releasing you
into the tomb the darkness the empty unknown.

We would rather hang on to you friend
and let Simon take the cross as you slip out of line
catch a taxicab out of town
and escape into your suburban green lawn hideaway
where we drop by for a Sunday cookout and a Bud.
The mosquitoes would hover around us like angels
singing “holy, holy, holy” and smell our breath and sweat
and bite you and draw a blood drop
and we look at each other and we know now
as we hang our weeping heads
that nothing ever gets done in clinging comfort.

And so the time comes to let you go again
and let God do the divine metamorphosis
of every weeping, shameful, sad, gasping, gentle release
into the tomb of darkness where you meet us in emptiness
where when we let you go we let ourselves go also
as we fall into the earthy black of surrender
and wait, wait, wait for your next creation out of nothing
your unexpected goodness bleeding through
your resurrection of everything we released to you
even ourselves in our fear of you and your mysterious ways.

Saturday, March 27th, 2021

“Christ Has No Body” by St. Teresa of Avila

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.