For church leaders in the midst of Holy Week

For my colleagues in Christ: my fellow deacons and pastors and priests, my bishops, my church musicians (God bless every single one of you), the choir directors and the choir members, the volunteers, the janitors, the people making sure that there will be enough bread for Monday Thursday communion, the women faithfully ironing out all the paraments in all the different colors, for every single one of you that's wearied by Holy Week -- this is for you.

You are running a marathon at the pace of a sprint. You are going through the emotional loop de loops of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and Holy Saturday and Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday along with all of the usual stressors of being a church leader along with the weird stuff that happens to crop up during Holy Week as if by some sort of mysterious summoning force every energy that we're putting out into the world has drawn in every other energy that could try to find us.

You, my friends, you are carrying the banner, and oh my is it heavy.

I know they say that no matter what goes wrong during Holy Week, no matter what you forget, no matter what volunteer or staff member fails to show up on time or with the right supplies, no matter what strangeness happens, no matter how empty your Easter basket literally or metaphorically might be on Sunday morning --I know that they say that Jesus will rise anyway.

I know that they say that Jesus will rise anyway, that all our human effort, all the stress we put ourselves through is in the end very valuable and yet not the determining factor on whether or not the resurrection will come.

I know that they say that Jesus will rise anyway. And some years that gave me great comfort, to know that as much as I could see every flaw, every mistake, every error, everything I'd forgotten or ways I could have done it better, it wasn't up to me in the end. There were years before that was so, so freeing. And so my beloved church leadership colleagues, if you need to hear that Jesus will rise anyway despite whatever just went wrong or whatever is about to, my loves, I tell you now that we do not have control over the resurrection. Jesus will rise anyway.

Jesus will rise anyway -- but I never want that phrase to sound like it's laughing off the hard work, the exhaustion that church leaders are experiencing this week. I don't want you to feel dismissed, I don't want your pain, your tears, your struggle, your anxieties to feel like they are all laughed off with a “well, you know, Jesus will rise anyway.” My loves, that is not at all what I am trying to say. And if it is feeling dismissive, let me tell you a different story.

There was a sower who perhaps wastefully, prodigally even, cast seed with abandon. Some fell on rocky soil and could not take root; some fell on the road and was trampled; some fell among weeds and although it grew, eventually it was choked out and could not get the sunlight and water it needed; and some fell on good soil and it grew and grew and grew.

Maybe this Holy Week is your sowing. There are places you will throw seed and they will turn out to be rocky or trodden underfoot on the road or choked out by weeds. There are seeds, my loves, seeds that just refuse to grow in our churches or seeds that like to cast their mind backwards and -- rose colored glasses on and full bore nostalgia activated -- say, “well, why can't everyone just grow the way we used to?” neglecting that the soil, the air, and the water has all changed and I do mean that literally as much as I mean it metaphorically.

Sow, sow, sow my loves, but there are some seeds that just refuse to grow and that is not, not, not your job this week. Your job this week can be to sow the seeds and let God do the rest. Your job can be to let Jesus rise and all you have to do is tell about it.

I hope my loves that in the exhaustion that comes for you this week, the late nights, the early mornings, the long, long days, the hospital visits or the missed hospital visits that someone will accuse you of on Easter Sunday morning and you will politely not remind people that if you want to be visited in the hospital, someone does need to let the pastor know that you are in the hospital -- my loves, I wish you an Easter Monday.

I wish you sleeping in, I wish you birds singing and pancakes cooked just the way you like them and eggs we can afford.

I wish you a breakfast on the seashore where after a long night of it feeling like you got nothing done, you see someone you think you know. And that someone calls out to you: “Come and have breakfast.”

My loves, I wish for you all the growth, not all the growth in all the places all the time because none of us can have it, but I wish for you all the growth that will show you and celebrate you for all the work you did this week. Not every seed will grow, my loves, but there is some that will, and that seed will be bushels on bushels, and may it become a nourishing bread for your own journey yet to come.