Still Sleeping???

Trinity Cathedral has a wonderful tradition for Maundy Thursday called "The Liberation Feast." It's a potluck dinner as well as a remembrance of our biblical stories and a Eucharist service. A major part of it is a "Presente Celebration" which acknowledges the presence of those who have witnessed to their faith.

I was excited to bring this to All Saints' Littleton, and it was a wonderful evening last night.

One thing that I have personally done the last 5 years is offer an additional audio-visual experience of what happens AFTER dinner...which I've called "In the Garden of Faith and Fear."

Sometimes it's been a slide show and reflection, other times a music video and meditation.

My offering this year at All Saints' was Melissa Etheridge's music video "I Need to Wake Up," written for the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. I showed the video first and then shared a commentary on it which follows below:


WHY TONIGHT?

“Are you still sleeping and taking your rest?” Mark 14:41

One of the strange things about Holy Week is this: we know how it’s going to end. So walking through Holy Week is often seen as a remembering of our story. We try to imagine what it was like for Jesus’ followers to actually experience the events of Holy Week.

However, it occurs to me that those who gathered the stories knew how it ended as well. They experienced first hand accounts that Jesus’ followers....his friends...all ran away at the critical moment in fear for their own lives.

But does the story really “end” with the known result: an empty tomb, the proclamation “Jesus is risen,” and the accounts of appearances?

It occurs to me that Jesus’ plea to “wake up” still stands. A critical part of the story continues in that Jesus’ disciples ultimately decide to “wake up!” Despite all of the guilt and shame associated with running away and denying Jesus, the result of Holy Week and Easter was a shake up! The disciples finally get it! They become this bold group of “doers.” They finally understand the wisdom of Jesus’ teachings, and set out to live their lives in a way that makes a difference.

I think that’s the point of the video. We all can find ways that we’ve been guilty and ways we’ve fallen short of God’s dream for the world. Instead of staying in that place, I think God is calling us to now wake up and act.