Turn our return!

“When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.”

Psalm 126:1 [KJV; see Psalm 126]

Psalm 126 lives in my mouth in its King James cadences, whether spoken aloud or in my mind’s ear only. The “t’s” in “turned” and “captivity” are clipped in soft staccato while the “e” of “dream” stretches longer than its single syllable. Its sound ebbs as I am drawn into the vision it pronounces. Remember that dreaming? Remember what it was to live a dream?

Pause at the thought of dream, then let the recitation of it tumble from my lips. My mouth pronouncing the phrases is again brimful of brightness. Remember what it was when others saw our joy, named it for us, even before we ourselves recognized that our shoulders were lifting, our steps become lighter? “The LORD has done great things for them.” O! Savor it!

My singing tongue slows, then continues, resolutely: “The LORD has done great things for us, whereof we are glad.” The glow of remembrance fades even as I recollect it. My voice catches, my tone shifts from reverie to plea: “Turn again our captivity, O LORD!…” Memory of God’s prior graces moved into urgent demand of God-self: remember us, do again great things for us.

Psalm 126 is a psalm from a middle place. Prayed by a people who know God has done great things for them. Prayed by a people who know, also, that the great thing is yet unfinished, who pray that God is not done with them.

I pray this psalm as I walk in the day. I pray this psalm as I lie down at night. I pray this psalm as I read the news. I pray this psalm as I move into Holy Week. I will pray this psalm on past this Easter Sunday, as I am praying it now, past all the prior Easters that have been.

“Christ is risen!” we will proclaim on Sunday. The sanctuary will be filled with flowers and the Hallelujah Chorus and jubilation. Our mouths will be filled with laughter and our tongues with shouts of joy.

And then we will leave the sanctuary and go into the world. And then we will find, again, or still, that resurrection has changed everything and that the world remains broken.

The LORD has done great things for us! Turn again our captivity!

The Hebrew is something like ‘Turn, O LORD, our returning ….’ The verb echoed in its object; the dream memory of v.1 revised in v.4 to imperative demand. ‘Turn our return.’ The unfamiliar syllables feel awkward in my mouth. They resonate differently than “turn again our captivity.” The latter might be read as a turning-back, a restoration to what was before. I’ve pictured it so: freed exiles streaming back to a rebuilt city. Perhaps this psalm was rooted in a real memory of return, yet in that history, the city’s rebuilding was but an incomplete fulfillment. God called God’s people to further walking. God’s people called God to further rescue.

Read Psalm 126 not as returning back to some prior way of being but as turning on to what yet will be. The final verses tell it so: they do not rest in the storehouses of some prior season’s harvest but call for sowing anew and promise that the resulting harvest will be abundant, occasion for new shouts of joy. Easter does not turn back the clock nor deny death. Easter overcomes it: Thomas knows the risen Jesus not by his unblemished skin but by his wounds.

The world remains broken. Sow the seed anyway. Because resurrection has changed everything. Because we can practice it. Must practice it. Sing joy — even in tears, even while weeping — that in singing we experience already the harvest anticipated as God turns our return on towards God’s intended end.

Breakfast on the beach

photograph (c) Katherine Brown

Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach, but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!”

John 21:4-7a [from John 21, NRSVUE]

A week of Vacation Bible School, our first after long while. Thirty children, a dozen youth helpers, and another dozen adults. Decorated spaces and energetic music and four stories about the way God feeds God’s people. With manna. With endless enough. With vegetables and water. With bread and fish.

Me, I don’t anticipate VBS with unmitigated enthusiasm. The cartoon puppets and pop music and bright-T-shirts-for-volunteers are not my style. (I come home after, button on a cotton shirtdress, and feel myself again.) There are compensating charms, however: the children’s energy as they sing and move; the one whose pipe cleaner creation is a ‘funny squiggle dancing thing!’ and whose goodbye pat is soft on my back; discussion about how to be a friend, about feeding the whole world.

Mostly I love the stories. I love telling them, acting them, helping the children learn the words with their bodies as well as their minds. I love the moments when a spark seems to catch. We act out the story of Elijah and the widow, letting every child have a turn: each time a child-widow hands a last-cake to a child-Elijah, I slip another plastic cake out of my pocket and onto the ‘widow’’s plate. ‘Let’s do it again!’ the children clamor, and we do. One sunny face looks up and laughs: ’You’re being God making more cakes!’ She is delighted at her recognition of the story in the action; so am I.

I awake the last morning of VBS and feel as if I’ve been dreaming John 21, this text telling Vacation Bible School. I nearly laugh aloud with the recognition of the story in the week.

Breakfast on the beach.

John has already told Easter: Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene in the morning [20:11-18], and to the disciples that same evening [20:19-23], and to Thomas, too, a week later [20:24-29]. Resurrection has been experienced in the text, and resurrection has been written so that others may know it too [20:30-31]. So. Resurrection. What next?

John seems to take a breath to start on this next movement of the story: ‘After these things…’ He tells us what the disciples don’t yet know. Jesus will show himself again, and ‘in this way’ [21:1]. The disciples have been out on the sea all night, fishing without catching [21:3]. This is told in one terse verse, yet the action stretched over hours and involved much effort. Get the boat out to sea — push it from the shore until it floats, row out farther, hoist the sail to go to deeper water, then repeatedly throw and haul nets that are heavy even when empty. (Organize volunteers and decorate church spaces and plan a schedule and prepare snacks.) Dawn breaks, and in the half-light of early morning, the disciples realize they’ve drifted back in; they see the shore and a man on it. He calls to them, and they answer, admit the result of all their effort. No fish. Throw your net on the other side, the man says, and they do, and then the net is so full of giant fish that they cannot even haul it in.

Only then do they realize what we already know. The disciple Jesus loved is the first to voice his recognition: ‘It is the Lord!’ Peter, hearing, throws himself toward shore. The others come after. Jesus is there. A charcoal fire is burning; breakfast is prepared. ‘Bring the fish you just caught,’ Jesus urges, and they haul in the fish-laden net, and it does not break — this itself worth noting.

‘Come and have breakfast,’ Jesus summons [21:12]. They do.

See them there on the shore as the sun rises and lays a path of light on the surface of the water. The air is scented with the sharpness of morning, the tang of charcoal smoke, the smell of fish roasting and bread baking on a hot rock. The sun rises higher, dazzles in its brightness; the sky turns hard blue, the day grows hot. The disciples do not ask who Jesus is because they do not need to. Their feeling of unreasoning joy confirms what the beloved disciple had said to Peter. Their awareness quivers brim-ful, on the cusp of overflowing. Presence, Jesus had promised. Abiding, fruit-bearing, joy [15:4-11]. Now it is.

The disciples went out for fish. Knowing themselves sent [20:21], even if they weren’t yet sure to whom or for what, they went. Maybe they hoped to encounter again their Lord; maybe they hoped only to be found faithful to his sending. They know resurrection is real. They may not be sure of what comes next, but they move forward as if towards it. Their movement towards the next-thing draws the next-thing in. The long night of fruitless fishing is not fruitless. Day breaks and joy stands on the shore and calls to them even when they do not realize it is he. Awareness is retrospective — It is joy who has called to us! — then, eyes opened, they are able to remain for a time eating and drinking the awareness that God is present to them and they are present to God. On that dazzling bright morning, breaking fast after a long night, muscles aching with prior effort and present rest, realizing again as if for the first time, that resurrection does not end the story but begins it.

And God makes more cakes for us to share.

Let’s do it again!

The Tribulation and the Kingdom

Easter Egg and Photo (c) Katherine Brown

‘John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.’

verses 4-7 from Revelation 1

Easter has come. For the first time in two years, we celebrated it in church, physically together. The chancel was decked with flowers and a butterfly banner made by the Sunday School. The organ peeled. Voices rose in song. Hallelujahs returned to the sanctuary as the pastor proclaimed ‘Christ is risen!’ and the people replied ‘He is risen indeed!’

Easter has come. In the US there were multiple mass shootings that very weekend, more since. War between Russia and Ukraine continues, with horrific news of destruction and death and atrocities beyond those considered ‘appropriate’ in a theater of war. COVID rates are rising again, even as assessments of risk and response continue to divide the nation, along with judgments regarding race, sexuality, January 6, and too much else.

Easter has come. Christ is risen. What has changed?

Everything, says the book of Revelation. Do we trust its testimony?

The book is written by John, a record of what he saw when he was on the island called Patmos ‘in the spirit on the Lord’s day’ [1:9-11]. The revelation, though, is not his own. The revelation, the apocalypse, the uncovering, is ‘of Jesus Christ’ [1:1]. John’s written vision is challenging to read. Its imagery is bizarre, difficult to picture — starting with a flame-eyed, bronze-footed, sword-mouthed, torrent-voiced Son of Man [1:14-16]. In places it is unpalatably violent. (The lectionary skips these, as if the imagery is beyond that considered ‘appropriate’ in a theater of worship.) Yet this vision is written to send, to be read aloud [1:3, 11, 19].

‘John to the seven churches ….’ [1:1] Seven for completeness; seven including even us, as stuck in the middle now as they were then. A community come into being because Easter has come and been proclaimed, yet living still in a world of division and suffering and violence.

I’ve studied Revelation before. Its awareness of its own writtenness connects with other texts similarly struck. I came to Revelation this week assuming that note would again sing loudest in my hearing yet trying to will my mind to allow another note to sound. (My pre-reading prayer as hedged about with qualifications as John’s own visionary descriptions: one ‘like’ this, a thing ‘like’ that.). I floundered. Nor am I over with that work — floundering still! Yet on the umpteenth time of reading aloud, I was caught by an unexpected interplay. As I pronounced John’s self-introduction, I heard in my head a different rhythm. John proclaims himself one who shares ‘the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance’ [1:9]. I heard ‘the kingdom and the power and the glory,’ then recalled my mind to my own voice and read aloud and listened again.

‘The persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance.’ Three nouns in the Greek. ‘The tribulation and reign and steadfastness.’

The kingdom as God’s reign come near [Mark 1:14-15], as God’s will come here, on earth as in heaven [Matt 6:9-10] — that is familiar. Yet the other two seem slant to John’s earlier doxology [1:5-6], a Looking-Glass version of the Lord’s Prayer as we commonly recite it. Kingdom not as preface to power but conjoined with persecution and endurance, suffering and steadfastness.

How does ‘kingdom’ look in this unexpected frame? What are we missing if we twine ‘kingdom’ only ever with glory and overlook this tribulation named in the word, the brokenness known in the world? What if, instead, we follow John’s cue and claim identity in a different share, identity in sharing? Your hurt becomes my ache. Injury done to them is done to us. The work of resurrection becomes ever more urgent; our endurance in it ever more pressing, and, through Easter, ever more possible.

Easter does not contradict the cross. Christ died. Easter overcomes it. Christ is risen.

Easter does not contradict the world’s brokenness nor shy away from the reality of suffering. Easter overcomes it. So the world’s brokenness does not itself contradict Easter but may become the stage on which our suffering and endurance testify to resurrection in our witness of shared tribulation and steadfast hope.

We are a kingdom, priests to God; God’s is the glory and the power [1:6], the sustaining through which Christ’s faithful witness [1:5] becomes our own, a testimony which is trustworthy because it does not pretend the world is whole, transforming as it persists through us towards the world’s healing.

Easter changes everything. May our witness be true.

Leaf Candles

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

John 20:30-31, from John 20:19-31, lectionary text for Sunday after Easter.

The dogwood is emerald-candled. Its leaves are new and small, precisely shaped, slightly flared. Glowing green. Each leaf-pair is poised at the tip of a slender branch. The sun shines, and the leaf-cups appear each a lit glim held aloft. The light seems to be radiating from the leaves themselves as if they, not the sun, are the source of their shining. Then clouds pass across the sun, and the light dims, and the leaves are again leaves. Just leaves. New, small, precisely shaped, slightly flared. Flat green.

Easter evening, Jesus came and stood among the disciples, and the disciples who saw him rejoiced (John 20:19-20). Christ-light had shone, and I imagine them radiant in its glow.

Thomas, one of the twelve, had not been with them that night. ‘We have seen the Lord!’ the others told him. Thomas refused the news. See the insistent shake of his head, the stubborn hunch of his shoulders? Thomas recites the litany of the sparks necessary to kindle his belief: he must see, he must touch. Not his lord — the one they said they had seen (20:25), the one with whom he had been willing to die (John 11:16) — but the marks of the nails in Jesus’ hands and side. As if the proof of resurrection is in the marks of suffering. Only if Thomas can encounter the body that he knows was broken will he believe that his Lord has risen.

So obdurate is Thomas’s resistance to his fellows’ joy that I wonder at his presence when, a week later, the disciples are again in the house (20:26). Thomas is with them. He had seemed to feel their resurrection report of Easter evening was more injury than invitation. In the face of their joy, he had insisted on his loss. But the following week, he was among them. Did he come because of the others’ witness or in spite of it? Did they welcome him in hope their joy would spark his own or because all of them together, in joy or in pain, were Christ’s own? Is it their welcome, even? Or is it reunion, and Christ the welcoming host?

Is it about the leaves or the light?

A week after Easter, Jesus stood among them and told Thomas to see and to touch. ‘Do not be unbelieving but believing,’ Jesus says (20:27). Thomas is shaken out of the fixedness of his disbelief by this encounter with Jesus’ nail-marked body. ‘My Lord and my God!’ he exclaims (20:28). ‘You have seen me,’ Jesus tells Thomas, then Jesus tells all of us after, ‘Blessed are those who have not seen but believe’ (20:29). John’s gospel continues Jesus’ address to us with a reference to its own body, the thing ‘written so that you may believe …’ (20:31).

A body pierced by nails, twisted on a cross; broken by the world to overcome the world. A community still claiming more than it lives, striving to live what it claims, falling short and having to try again and again. Things written in a distant idiom — vocabulary, grammar, imagery — that must be learned and studied and read again and again. A world of bodies. Each in some way marked, twisted. None complete.

Don’t mistake the leaves for the light. Don’t mis-order the priorities. Do recognize the relationship.

The clouds pass away, and the sun shines full. Again, the dogwood is emerald-candled, each leaf-pair lit from within, seeming to show its true self, its very life.

The daylight lets me see the dogwood leaves. The leaves make that light visible as it otherwise would not be. The leaves let me see the light.

People; pages. Inadequate bodies all around. Yet somehow the proof of Easter shows through these bodies that together — written, reading, lit, radiant, alive — make resurrection visible.

Gracious encounter. That you may believe and, believing, have life.