Between Bethany and Jerusalem

This week, we’re between Bethany and Jerusalem.  Bethany, of course, the site of last week’s gospel reading where Lazarus was raised; and Jerusalem, where Jesus enters the city in this week’s gospel story, also where Jesus will die.  

It’s just not that far from Bethany to Jerusalem—the Bible says about two miles.  I’ve been thinking about that thinness—as I walked a 5K this week (about 3 miles) and most mornings I try and walk at least 5 miles.  It’s only about 7 miles from my suburban home to Center City Philadelphia.  It’s just not that far—but so much goes on in between!  

I’ve been thinking for the past week about the distance between the church world I grew up in (of the 1980’s and 1990’s) and the realities of the world the congregation I serve today faces.  It’s the wrestling between technical change and adaptive change; and it comes in the form of the temptation to tweak what we have going on, or to try and adopt “best practices” from other churches that appear more successful rather than simply embracing who we believe God calls us to be.  Deep down, we all have some sense of why our faith is important and the things we want our faith to accomplish.  But we don’t always know this shouldn’t just be another church program.  I grew up seeing how church changed lives.  Some days it seems like a small gap from then till now; other days it’s a chasm.  

Spiritually, this week seems huge.  On Sunday Jesus marches forthrightly into Jerusalem, his face fully intent, his chin seemingly chiseled, his nerves steeled for everything that’s coming.  But he’s just emerged from raising the dead to life!  Surely Jesus doesn’t raise Lazarus to life only for him to die again.  

For Lent, one of invitations for our congregation has been to identify “the things we’d like to leave behind” when Lent is over.  More intentionally, the things we’d like to be met by Jesus in the resurrection so that we are unburdened of them, they are removed, and we are left to live in the new life Jesus promises.  As a part of our liturgy on Sunday we will march these “leavings” into Jerusalem with Jesus on Sunday.  We will give them up, hand them over, and in an act of seeking release from them we will release them ourselves and ask God to release us from them.  

The new world we face isn’t that far away from the old one.  But like the gospel itself, the new world challenges us to live in new ways.  It’s not about “giving up something for Lent.”  Having walked that road, we know small sacrifices or larger ones have the potential to radically change us.  As we walk into Jerusalem with Jesus, how resolute will we be about the things that we know need to change?  How chiseled can we carry our chin?  How committed to the real work of the gospel truths?  And do we remember we are bringing with us not the stench of death, but the sweet smell of resurrection?  

On to Jerusalem.