The Lord needs it

There is a tradition of spirituality in the church called Ignatian spirituality- named after Ignatius of Loyola who found an order called the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits. One of the practices of Ignatian spirituality is a form of scriptural imagination-taking wherein you immerse yourself in a passage or story from scripture and settle into a sensory and interactive experience of that story. Put yourself in the story- what do you see, what do you hear, what do you taste, smell, touch, what is the feeling, what is around you, who are you in the story, how do you desire to interact with the story? There is this temptation we have sometimes to treat scripture as too precious and too fragile to take bending, poking, examining, embodying. Scripture is tough and scripture is flexible and it can take our inhabiting of it. It can take it.

And whenever I read this story- whenever I consider what it happening on this day, 5 days before a crucifixion, on his entry into the city of Jerusalem, I find myself in the body of the person in the village watching the pair of disciples untying the rope and I feel myself shouting "hey, that's my donkey!"

Can you imagine if we were all hanging out here with Gertie and twelve guys came up to us and were like, hey this is the second coming by the way and Jesus here needs Gertie. I think we might freak out. Or if the guys came up to me and were like, hey, give us the keys to your Jeep, we're gonna tie some tin cans on strings to the back of it and drive to Falmouth. The Lord needs it. Even if I nervously dropped my keys into his hands, I would probably hang back and pull Thomas aside and be like "soo, is he gonna bring it back or do I need to go over there later..?"

I say all this not to make light of story but rather to dredge up a bit just how weird this story, and all the stories of scripture really are at their core. It is easy to gloss over the big stuff-- oh ya, the whole world got flooded but they built an ark and saved all the animals,, oh yeah, the bush blazed to life and spoke to Moses not too long before the Lord rained down frogs and locusts on the land,, oh yeah, Jesus kept telling people he was going to die, and then he had this big funny parade into the city where he was to die, and then he died, and then he came back to life. Yeah, oh yeah yeah yeah, we know this one already.

Scripture is really, really weird. The world around us right now is really, really weird. And the life of a church community can feel really, really normal. This weirdness around does not always puncture the film of normalcy around a church. It does sometimes, but scripture doesn't say much in it about email, social media campaigns, church lock-up procedures, committee structures, or how sometimes your job that day is to go to the store to buy paper plates.

I love the prosaic life of the church. The coffees, the armchairs, the breakfasts and lunches and dinners, the book studies, the meetings. And sometimes, especially on a day like today, I am reminded that the life of discipleship, the life of the church, is at times, is sudden, bizarre, and unjustified.

It is easy to feel timid as a Christian in this day and age,

but we have a message of mercy, forgiveness, dignity, grace, and care-- that is so urgent and so desperately needed that if we were not to say it then the stones would cry out with it.

It is easy to feel trepidation or suspicion about the needs of the world around us, or to pump the brakes on our responses to the hurt and harm we see around us. And sometimes, sometimes, the story in scripture is doing a big risky procession into a city, drawing the wrong kind of attention, and understanding that there will be consequences for it. Sometimes, the story in scripture is of the apostles approaching you, asking for Gertie, or for the keys to your Jeep, or for your time or attention or money, and you saying What for and them saying The Lord needs it. And that's that.

There are big hurts and little hurts in the world all around us. There is pain, uncertainty, confusion, fear, and a great many needs, in the world, in our town, in our neighborhood, in this community. And sometimes, the answer really is, The Lord needs it, The Lord needs you, right now. Yes, for this, right now. The stones cry out for God and God's people cry out for help. The Lord needs us, as much now as ever.

What a lofty call we have to answer then, lofty but not unassailable. The story of Palm Sunday played out with a donkey, some coats, and some palms. The healings and the reconciliations in the Gospel played out with bread, fish, baskets, some mud, a rug, the hem of a garment. Jesus did not ride into the city of Jerusalem in a Ferrari while the people of God threw gold coins at him. The apostles weren't Olympians and we don't need to be either. The miracles and the ministries were all made out of ordinary people and ordinary things who decided that what they had was enough to show up with. We have we need. I wonder what you have that the Lord needs. I wonder what love and tenderness you have that is looking for a way to spill out. I wonder what friendship you have to give in a world that is so lonely. I wonder what table we have that we can fit a couple more seats around to make room. I wonder what kind of a world we can build with a coffee pot, a crock pot, a bingo machine, a fire pit, a little time, a little tenderness, a little attention, some deviled eggs, a couple more seats at the table.

We have what we need. I wonder what we have? The Lord needs it.