Let’s Talk About…’Holy Week’ Ps 118: 19-29, Jn 12:12-16

By S. J. Munshower

APRIL 9, 2006

“Let’s talk about______” has been our theme for the five Monday nights of Lent. So “Let’s talk about…Holy Week” seems a fitting title for today. Depending on the day and the topic, there were ten or twenty of you sharing “Soup and Subjects;” perhaps a total of thirty-five different people over the course of the five weeks. The groups were a comfortable size……small enough to give everyone ample time to talk…..but...not so big that we had to divide into smaller groups. I don’t say this to make you feel guilty but just to keep you informed. So if you meant to be there but couldn’t, please don’t feel anything but missed.

Mostly we enjoyed casual intellectual conversation. But on some of the evenings we talked of matters of the heart. That is the way it is with Lent. We come to it with both our hearts and minds, hoping to improve, to grow, to stretch ourselves in some way. Hoping to find ourselves closer to God and to each other.

But Holy Week is different. We can’t think, or talk, our way through holy week. It is not a matter of the mind, but rather, one of the heart.

A good friend of mine asked, in his newsletter page “REVlings”…. “What are you counting these days?” It reminded me of the kind of question Andy Rooney asks, and then proceeds to answer. My friend’s answers were pretty basic………much the same as yours or mine might be………

· carbs and calories?

· days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training? (I would say days until I can put plants in the ground)

· new faces I see in church on Sunday? (he’s a pastor, too in case you didn’t catch that)…and,

· how many golf balls are left when you get to that last water hole?

And, of course, he got around to counting our blessings. It seems that someone he was visiting in the hospital reminded him of that one! It’s one we all need reminded of once in a while; especially when a setback comes, as it did for the person whose doctor came in moments later with news that “ set him back” a bit.

The moral of the story…….”you can’t count blessings and setbacks at the same time.” [Rev. Robert Faulhaber]

Now, if you are a left-brain person that makes perfect sense. Of course you can’t add and subtract at the same time. But I am right-brained and so I say, “yes, but…….you can’t have one without the other………..NO GAIN WITHOUT THE PAIN

· NO GRADUATION WITHOUT APPLICATION

· NO CHARITY WITHOUT GENEROSITY

· NO SORROW IS LIFTED WITHOUT SOME TEARS SHED

· THERE IS NO EASTER WITHOUT GOOD FRIDAY.

We can’t keep our minds on Lenten disciplines or deprivations when we get to Holy Week. But it is not easy for us to get “out of our heads.” We live with the knowledge of what happened. Most of us have grown up with the story and yet, I wonder how well we really know the story? Barbara Brown Taylor calls us “latter day saints blessed with retrospective piety”……20-20 religious hindsight.

The media does its part in keeping us in our heads, too. Have you noticed how much religious news is in the papers and on TV lately? It seems as though they are taking advantage of this “religious prime time” and appealing to both our minds and our heats (not to mention our pocketbooks). Here are a few I’ve see….you might have noticed others….

· A CNN SPECIAL ON THE TWO MARYS

· ANOTHER ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF POPE JOHN PAUL II

· FEATURES ON PREPARING FOOD FOR PASSOVER

· THE DEBATE BETWEEN WRITERS OF RELIGIOUS FICTION

(DA VINCI CODE AND HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL)

[Da Vinci Code won, by the way.]

AND THEN ALONG COMES

· “A WHOLE NEW CHAPTER ON JUDAS” (HARTFORD COURANT HEADLINE)

(There go more than a few Judas sermons!)

But…could it actually be a conspiracy? I doubt that……but I am disappointed by the tactics of National Geographic….for withholding information from other scholars and archeologist….it seems out of character and unethical…..another sickness in what some might say is an ethics epidemic in not just our country but throughout the world.

So what does all this have to do with Holy Week? Well, that answer lies in how much do these things touch your heart and mine? Do we just listen and read and filter out, or do we let some new piece of information in? A new understanding that shifts our belief-system or nudges us into action…..action other than what we watch on big and little screens?

Americans have been inundated lately with reality shows. Some even existed before the label they are now listed under. Most of those and a few of the new ones are good. They invite our better sides to engage in planting a garden, fixing up an old house, or living the life of a pioneer. But many are running rapidly downhill (I’m sorry if you are a fan of any or all of them).

But really, some of them see designed to bring out the worst in us……something that is hardly necessary when we can see the worst in humanity in the news every day, and EVERY YEAR AS WE APPROACH THE CROSS OF CRUCIFIXION.
On the other hand, a few are truly well intentioned and it is heartwarming to see a family come home to a house equipped for health and safety needs. Or, to see a terminally ill child receive a wish….these are truly “REALITY” SHOWS AT THEIR BEST.

There is a new one, “BLACK-WHITE,” that the verdict is still out on. It shows two families altering their race with make-up, hair and skin coloring and even feature changes. All so as to live in the other’s culture, to experience life from the others’ perspectives, thereby giving the viewer the same experience, and thereby improving the quality of all our lives.

I don’t know about you, but I have my doubts about whether this show will have a lasting impact on race relations in the United States.

Although it might be that the producers are on to something. Many of these shows satisfy the need for adventure and excitement……….some even the need to feel charitable...…so why not another one to bridge the gap between the races? I have not seen the show. I have seen a number of reviews and they are quite mixed. Maybe we could all watch a few episodes and have another “Soup and Subjects” to decide what we think…..after Holy Week...

For now, let’s just remember that television is a poor substitute for life…..that we can’t know another human being by watching an actor or actress….that sometimes we have to experience another’s life right where they are, in their reality…..like walking a mile in another’s moccasins…..

Holy Week calls us to do that...…to walk with Jesus and his followers into Jerusalem, to the temple and the garden….to hear the mockery of the mob and the judgment of the Roman authorities.

Holy Week yells out to us to feel the stones underfoot and to shed tears for the men carrying crosses to Golgatha, and for the crowds watching them.

Holy Week demands that we confront the reality of life and death all week long, especially on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday……in order to celebrate the reality of the resurrection on Easter.

St. John tells us that “the disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified [after he rose from the dead], then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.”

When he was glorified….which they knew in their hearts….then, after their hearts believed, then, their minds remembered these things.

There was another religious item in the news this week….about St. Mary’s Ukrainian Church in Colchester. In 2004, a gas leak explosion destroyed the building. On Wednesday morning, as the Hartford Courant headline read, the “Church Dome Sent from Above.” It was put in place by the power of a mighty crane and the prayers and gifts of many, including the United Churches of Christ in CT.

From a day of ashes to a day of new life……….a little like a Lenten walk…..a lot like a Holy Week, from the depths of sorrow to a shining new day. In the spirit of the One who will rise again, Amen.