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This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

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April 8, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Contagious prayer

I’ve come to dread the afternoons. It’s in the afternoons and evenings when bad news seems to land in my news feed: New cases of COVID-19 nearby. The stay-at-home order extended. The restaurant recently closed. John Prine died. 

I try to stop each time to pray for those affected. If only for a moment, long enough to inhale, and say, “Please, God…” once again.

Prayer is our basic response to trust in God. In prayer, we acknowledge our limitations in the light of God’s limitless power, goodness, and love. On our knees (or wherever we’re praying), we confess, “I can’t do this, God, but You can. Please, please, please.”

Bodies fail us, relationships come to an end, bank accounts run negative, anxiety overwhelms, and yet still God’s promise stands. He sees us, He knows us, He cares for us.

Amedeo Capetti is a physician in Milan, Italy. Milan has been the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis in Italy for months. In a letter to the editor of his local newspaper on April 1, he described that challenge and necessity of faith in such a time and place. Along with the virus, he writes, prayer is contagious, too.

“Yesterday a woman from Crema phoned me to get news about her grandmother who is hospitalized and in serious condition at the Sacco. She told me of her other grandmother, who died of COVID, and of her mother, who is in intensive care in Crema, and then she said, ‘You see, doctor, at the beginning I was praying, but now I’ve stopped.’ I answered, ‘I understand, ma’am. Do not worry. I will be the one praying for her.’ When she heard this, she was moved and said, ‘No, doctor, if you are going to pray, I’ll do it as well. Let’s pray together for my mother.’”  https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/prayer/grateful-for-each-breath

Physicians know better than any of us the limitations of human power. It’s only fitting that Dr. Capetti should be a teacher of prayer.

It was another teacher of prayer, Meister Eckhart, all the way back in the 13th century, who wrote, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” 

He’s right. You see, on the other side of prayers beginning, “Please, please, please,” are prayers beginning, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” 

For all the bad news, there’s been good news too: The grandfather breathing again on his own without a ventilator. The unexpected kindness of a neighbor. (A package of toilet paper on the shelf when we need it!) The resilience of us all, moving forward, loving still, and carrying one another through the hard days.

And behind all the news–good and bad–is the great good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ who promises to save and restore us in faith.

Maybe, we can all stop when we hear the good news and exhale, just long enough to say, “Thank You, God”? I hope so. I pray so. “Please God…thank You, God.” 

And the day goes on.

Courage, Fear, Holy Week, Prayer, Trust Tagged: contagious, coronavirus, prayer


April 20, 2019 | Leave a Comment

Holy Saturday: in the kitchen

Like many Christians, I imagine, I spend a whole lot of time during the Easter weekend in the kitchen. Meat: ham. Potatoes: cheesy. Vegetable: none if my family has anything to say about it, but usually broccoli. Pound cake or carrot cake? Hm.

With my Easter station playing on Pandora and my husband in the front yard mowing, kids sleeping in (and in and in), a Chris Tomlin song just brought me to tears. I love this.

I know that Holy Saturday is the day without Jesus, the day Jesus spends in the grave. But, really, in this kitchen, Jesus is all over the place.

In a little while, though, I’ll head to the church for a couple of hours at the prayer vigil. For the first hour, the kids will be there, still squirming even as teenagers. For the second hour, it will be just me, filling in a last minute cancellation.

Sometimes, over the years, Jesus has touched me mightily in the hour of the prayer vigil. Most years, though, his absence is real. It’s just for me about showing up, bearing witness, looking for him in the dark.

That’s really it, isn’t it? Looking for Jesus wherever we are? When He’s hard to find—in the catastrophes and trials—we keep looking. When the sunshine’s so bright as to blind us and the cake falls perfect from the pan—we keep looking for him.

“But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.” (Luke 23:49) They kept looking. They kept hoping. They didn’t go away.

The church today so empty and so silent will tomorrow be filled with trumpets and chocolate-addled children.

More than this, though, every tomorrow calls us to keep looking for Jesus, because those who look will see, those who seek will find.

Church, Family, Holy Week, Jesus Christ, Prayer Tagged: kitchen, looking for Jesus, prayer vigil


April 18, 2019 | Leave a Comment

Maundy Thursday: ochlocracy

In late March, 1902, our little town was the site of a lynching.  Right here in La Junta, some four thousand men, women, and children came to witness and participate in the hanging and shooting of a black man accused of assaulting a white woman.

Reports, at the time, describe the sheriff–a Sheriff Farr–as doing everything in his power–up to a point–to prevent the lynching, even hiding the accused man in a buggy and attempting to race for Sugar City with him.  The crowds ran him down.

Upon return to La Junta, a small group of prominent citizens–Robert Patterson, banker; Dr. Fleming, hospital physician; Charles Dearbohn, and some others, asked the crowd, “Could we try to obtain a confession out of the accused?”  The mob agreed, but soon discovered that they had been tricked. These prominent citizens had taken the accused into the courthouse to try to save the man’s life so he could stand trial.  

“When this was announced, the crowd began yelling and throwing stones. Battering rams were improvised, and the court house assaulted. Soon all the windows were broken and the doors of the county clerk’s and treasurer’s offices and the main entrance of the court house were broken down, and the mob rushed in at the door and windows.”

The mayor, Frederick Sabin, begged the crowd to allow the man due process.  “Our town,” he declared, “will be disgraced.” But the crowd dragged the accused man out to the town square anyway, hung him from the tallest telegraph pole, and shot him multiple times. 

Can you imagine it?  The population of La Junta in 1900 was only a little over 2,500, so a crowd of 4,000?  That was everybody in town, plus Rocky Ford and Swink, with likely some exaggeration to boot, but still it was a huge crowd.  

It was a mob.

“Ochlocracy” is the fancy word for mob rule.  No law, no elections, no reason, no due process, just action, usually quick, usually violent.

The Romans knew a little bit about ochlocracy.  Ochlocracy had helped bring down the Roman Republic, and the Roman Empire that succeeded it was barely 60 years old when Jesus showed up on the scene.  The Romans were terrified of mob justice because they knew what mob justice could do.

Those Jewish leaders, they knew it too.  They were afraid of the mob too. Twice, the Gospel of Mark points it out:

“The chief priests and teachers of the law heard this (Jesus) and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.”  (Mk 11:18)

And, a few verses later, in the trap they try to set for Jesus, again it’s acknowledged, “They feared the people” (Mk 11:32).

But what’s got the whole crowd riled up?  Jesus has the whole crowd riled up.

Jesus, he’s been talkin’ ‘bout the end of the world.  He’s been talkin’ ‘bout healing the sick, setting the captives free, and ‘bout a new empire, an empire of heaven, with God His Father on the throne.  He’s been talkin’ ‘bout Himself as that God’s Son,the Messiah, and that’s got everybody worked up.

It’s too much, and they’re scared.  And fear turns to anger, and anger turns to violence, and an innocent man dies.

I talk about it all the time.  Fear brings out the worst in us.  Fear makes us blind to the image of God in our neighbors, even the ones–especially the ones–with whom we disagree.  Fear throws up walls. Fear stokes hatred. At the very least, fear makes us stupid. A great politician will stoke fear, because it’s just that powerful.

And yet here comes Jesus.  Fear not, he preaches. Love your neighbors.  Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek.

“My grace is sufficient for you,” he tells the apostle Paul, “for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

It’s the opposite of mob justice.  It’s victory in fearlessness.

We’re getting closer to Easter, but let’s not pretend that we’re there yet.  Moments of fairness and peace do happen, but they’re not the rule. Not yet. Fear can only be conquered by love, but the terror is still real at times.  Stay here in these moments of Jesus’ suffering and death, trusting Him alone, for a few more hours, two more days.

And then feel the light.  And then know the power.

Fear, Holy Week, Jesus Christ, Small town, Trust Tagged: La Junta, lynching, ochlocracy


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This is the day that
the Lord has made;
let us rejoice
and be glad in it.

– Psalm 118:24

Rev. Dr. MJ Romano

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Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.
1 John 3:21-22
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