3 Easter, Year B
When Bryon and I moved to Seattle in the Fall of 2014, I was drawn to the home we purchased because it had a large garden with some beautiful plants including a large Magnolia or Tulip tree in the back yard. It bloomed beautifully the following Spring and we really enjoyed it. That fall when all the leaves were still on, there was a big storm with lots of rain and heavy winds. The next day, I went out and saw that the tree had toppled over. It was lying sidewise on the ground with half of its root ball outside the soil. Huge branches had broken off or were threatening the fence where it had landed.
The weather was still bad so I took a saw, hacked off the dangerous limbs and left it for the winter. It was in a sorry state and I didn’t expect it to survive. Since it was the largest and nicest tree in the yard, I grieved its loss and researched companies and the cost to remove it.
I’ve been thinking back to those days since Bryon and I just spent a week in Decatur, Georgia at Columbia Seminary for the Wounded Ministers conference. We were joined by clergy and spouses from a variety of denominations from all over the country. What they had in common is that they had all been forced out of their church. Their congregational call had ended but not by choice and not because of misconduct or dereliction of duty. This is what happened to Bryon last year and both of us were still grieving, wounded, knocked down.
Some of you may be aware of this story, but I haven’t chosen to talk about it publicly until now. The pulpit is no place to air open wounds and grievances. Until pain has been transformed, it will be transmitted and I do not wish to transmit anger or grief onto a congregation I love and serve.
One thing we have learned from this experience is that we are not alone. In the church, these abrupt and difficult endings happen with such frequency that they need to hold these conferences more than once per year. These losses happen in so many ways that death and grief are a universal experience. When we shared our story, we learned that many we know have lost jobs, either through lay-offs or by firing. Many families have at least one or more relationships where there is a cut-off. People no longer communicate or interact with one another. Many marriages and partnerships end with separation and divorce and there is grief and anger, sometimes for years. Addiction and mental illness are threaded through some family histories in ways that inflict terrible scars.
Most of us are wounded. Most of us hide our wounds. We carry around our shame, grief and blame secretly. When we feel wronged and are suffering from an injustice we are like the psalmist who cries out, “How long, you people, shall my honor suffer shame? How long will you love vain words, and seek after lies?” I preach forgiveness, reconciliation and resurrection, but it’s sometimes very difficult to live it.
But then we come to the actual resurrection texts, the accounts of Jesus’s first appearances to his disciples and there is something completely different, radically new, astounding and life-changing. After all he has suffered, all he has endured, including betrayal and denial by those closest to him, the first words he speaks to his disciples is “Peace be with you.”
Jesus is not raised from the dead to wreak revenge on his enemies. He’s not with them to prove that he was right and his critics were wrong. This isn’t about getting even or turning the tables on them, or making sure that they are punished for what happened to him. His first word to them is peace. He who is at peace, he who is the Prince of Peace, breathes peace into their troubled hearts and minds.
He comes to them with his wounds visible. He is not ashamed. They are invited to touch the places where the nails and spear have penetrated him and caused his death. He’s not papering over the trauma and suffering that he endured and they witnessed. It was real. It was horrible. It killed him.
And yet he is alive. He lives to remind them of all they learned and experienced of him. He is revealed in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of a meal, something he did countless times with them. It’s not that we think he needed to eat a piece of broiled fish, but that they needed him to eat with them so that they would remember all that he taught and did. To eat with Jesus is to know that he sat down with sinners, outcasts, and even his own betrayer. The table of fellowship he creates and continues will include all of them and so many more.
When they come back to their best and truest selves, to the ones who found faith, hope and love through their encounter with him, he gives them a command. They are to take the message of his suffering along with his resurrection out to a hurting world. They are to proclaim that there is another way, a second chance, a new journey that will open up for them through repentance and forgiveness. Rather than ruminating on all the pain and injustice that he experienced, he calls them forward into new life and renewed purpose. They can never go back but they will walk in newness of life if they follow him.
I think the people who lead the Wounded Ministers retreat hold it right after Easter for more than practical reasons. When we shared our stories, we did so in light of the resurrection story still fresh in our minds from our Easter celebrations. We found ourselves being drawn out of the tomb of self-doubt, recrimination, shame and blame into new purpose as witnesses of God’s power to heal and transform suffering, pain and even death. Bryon has a new call to a congregation in West Seattle. We know ourselves both to be wounded healers following the One by whose wounds we are made whole.
I couldn’t bear to cut the tulip tree down. It still had some signs of life and after a year or two, it even began to bloom a little. It was mangled, low to the ground, it hardly looked like a tree and parts of it were brutally cut off with just the raw ends of the cuts visible. But it was alive and trying. After four or five years, we made some new friends, both of whom are gardeners. Some of you know Alice and Rody.
Besides being a retired Methodist minister, Rody has a bonsai hobby. He is gifted in the art of pruning and has all the proper tools. On a visit to our home in good weather, he took a look at the tree and he saw possibilities there. He asked if he might try something. The first year involved removing quite a bit of tangled limbs. Remarkably, shoots started sprouting all over the branch and trunk. The second year involved judicious pruning of the riotous growth. The cut branches made a beautiful arrangement one Sunday morning at the altar. In the third and fourth years I learned how to see the shape and make the cuts myself with my new pruning tools.
This spring the tree was magnificent. Its shape is uniquely its own and unlike any other magnolia I have seen. It has been covered in huge, fragrant blooms for weeks and is the star of the yard. Its beauty peaked this year on Easter Sunday.
Leave a Reply