Rev. Valerie's Reveille

For anyone who has had a loved one die, finding a new “normal” is part of our grief work.  It takes time to learn how to live without that person’s presence.  If s/he was someone that had needed care, one might find having more time than one knows what to do with during the day. If s/he was killed in a tragic way, the sudden loss takes years to adjust to and re-order one’s life. Jesus’s death was as ignominious as it could have been, a state-sponsored execution that took hours to accomplish. His compatriots scattered but eventually found each other again to being their grief work, only to have Jesus’s resurrection change everything.  The disciples are given a reprieve of their grief by Jesus’s reappearance in their lives, and for 50 days they enjoy his presence once again. But more importantly – and urgently – Jesus is there with a message of love and purpose.  It is not one of recrimination or shame, but of faith, hope and love.  All that Jesus said would ...

A week ago, I participated in a Seder dinner offered by our local Rabbi, Robert Wolkoff.  He instructed us in this ancient Jewish ritual commemorating the Jews deliverance from slavery in Egypt.  The rabbi was emphatic that the meal wasn’t just a way to remember the story but to claim it as one’s own.  This was not something done long ago to someone else, this was done to me – both the oppression and God’s redemption. The hymn cited above has always drawn me.  The haunting melody, the soul-bearing truth of the pain of loss. It calls us all to take our place in the story of Jesus Christ’s Passion.  It gives voice to the sad reality that is at the crux of our faith – Jesus, an innocent man, was murdered.  This hymn invites us to ponder on how complicit we are that act of violence. It is true that no one alive today was physically present on that day in Jerusalem, but that does not absolve us of the crime.  As members of the Body of Christ and br...

As a society, we love commemorating important events, celebrating the anniversaries of occasions with remarks, reflections and festivities.  The bigger and rounder the number, the better! But sometimes we forget that in order to get to the 50 th Anniversary, we have to make it through the 1 st , the 13 th , the 37 th and the 49 th .  Each is special in its own way and deserves no less attention than the others.  Yet the milestone years do help us in those reflections and allow us the time needed to reflect on what has (or has not) happened.  Unfortunately, we don’t only mark happy events.  National tragedies and other significant events, like the death of a loved one, are also marked with time passing.  The fear of forgetting the event creates sentiments of “Remember the Alamo,” or “Never Forget 9/11.”  As time passes and those directly associated with such events and people pass as well, things are forgotten – not with malicious intent, but the...