Author: Steve

             He took off his outer robe,
             and tied a towel around himself…
             and began to wash the disciples’ feet.
                         —John 13. 4-5

Beloved, preparing to confront
the Powers on high, a reed against an axe,

you do not gather strength,
you empty yourself, becoming even less,

the smoke of incense no chains can hold,
a song no sword can stab.

You take the lowest place, kneeling
before us who would kneel to you,

a menial laborer, a servant, a nobody,
whose work will amount to nothing

in the kingdom of kings,
but treasure in the realm of friends.

You wash our feet of the dust of high places,
the weariness of being effective.

You baptize us in the grace of little acts of love
even under the boot of the Empire.

You pour yourself out and bathe us
in your nobodiness,

that we may trust your ocean of power
in our most insignificant deeds.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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            “Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat,
            but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail;
            and you, when once you have turned back,
            strengthen your companions.”
                         —Luke 22.31-32


Our hardest challenge is still to come:
all we trust, in crisis; all we love, at risk.
He knows our follies and our frailty.

But the Beloved is not demanding;
no, the One who holds the stars
is praying for us, lending us his heart.

For even as we fail, sustained
by strength that’s not our own,
we’re called to carry on.

He holds our imperfections
and our gross defections
in already nail-scarred hands,

and bids us strengthen one another
for the road ahead, with love
to contradict the Powers that harm.

It’s likely we shall know that harm
and suffer some, be sifted clean of all
we grasp and all we love but love.

And yet the one who’s sifted with us
still remains, and bears our scars,
and with forgiveness grants us grace

to witness and to serve and guide each other,
lifted in his love that now is ours,
fine-sifted, then, made pure and whole and strong.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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O Lamb,
there is no blood
that is not yours,

no guilt passed on,
and passed on again,
that is not ours.

Centurions, we stand bloodied
over the steaming carcass
and stammer.

Your uncomplaining blood
washes us
of doing this again.

The angel of death,
who would use us to wound,
passes over.

Through the Red Sea of your tears
we go with your blessing,
on washed, forgiven feet.

Holy One, Lord of Tenderness,
slaughtered and ever beseeching,
spare us from our deathfulness.

Forgiving One,
unreturning our violence,
set us free.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Now then, put down your palms.
This is the astonishing story of ruin,
a devastating drama of weakness and failure.
Our Savior will attain no victory.
He will defy the Empire of Fear.
We will deny him.
The Empire will have its way.
We will be left with humiliation and sorrow.
Broken bread, shared with betrayers.
Spilled wine, not understood yet.
Hymns drowned out by taunts and curses.
Palms crushed under crowds chanting for death.
The Emperor’s order,
and the fear with which we put him up to it.
Blood and nails in our otherwise empty hands.
On washed feet we run away.

This is the horrible good news,
the awful grace that redeems our lives
by taking them out of our hands.
We are shattered. And in that, in that,
God is present—embodied and powerful.
Our rebellion against love is complete,
and Love overthrows it all.

The Beloved is inside our suffering and our evil
and from there, nowhere lofty, loosens it,
forgives and heals, makes of our grave a womb,
and with terrifying gentleness invites us in.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             “This is my body.”
                                       —Luke 19.19


The ancients fought over how literally
the Communion bread becomes Jesus’ body.
But Paul says when we eat we should
“discern the body.” So look around
and perceive: we are the body of Christ.
The bread becomes Jesus’ flesh
not when some priest says some magic words,
but when we share. When we love each other
we take Jesus’ flesh into ourselves.
Christ is raised not as an individual
but as a community.
The story of Jesus’ passion, then,
is our story: to embody courageous love,
to stand against Empire for mercy and justice,
to be willing to be broken, to be scorned,
and to fail…
and to be raised again in a new form.
Feast on this mystery, take courage,
and go in love.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             “Truly I tell you,
             today you will be with me in Paradise.”
                         —Luke 23.43

In the claws of sadistic cruelty,
in the depth of terror,
words of comfort.

At the extreme of forsakenness,
under the grossest weight of shame,
an offer of companionship.

In the teeth of consuming agony,
trembling with weakness,
an act of kindness.

In the face of our sin,
our violation even of God,
complete forgiveness.

Resurrection is not later, but today,
heavenly warp and earthly woof,
all eternity present in the moment.

Resurrection is not afterlife,
but the alchemy of grace,
death transformed to life.

In despair’s soil: hope’s seed;
in suffering: love;
even in hell: paradise.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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The Emperor does not like us
gathering with others he also resents,
at this table beyond his comprehension.
His is the kingdom of fear,
his honor enforced, dissidents crucified.
His only power is death, and the fear of death.

But this is the table of life,
the table of the Loving One
who healed in the face of the Empire
and its machines of cruelty and greed.
We are the followers of this loving rebel against evil,
who resisted the powers of domination,
and so was arrested, detained, tortured,
executed by the State—
the very one who was also raised from the dead.

We gather, all of us sinners, broken and powerless,
and he breaks the bread of his life for us.
We drink his love, we feast on his energy,
and we become one body—his Body.

We are his resurrection.
We are the Resistance.

O Uncontainable One,
we are the flesh of your love and mercy,
alive by your Spirit, not our strength,
one body, all over the world,
strengthened to subvert the Empire of fear,
to resist injustice, to bring life,
to stand with the outcast and the condemned—
for we too are condemned,
enemies of the structures of evil.
But nothing can stop us,
for we have been crucified and raised already.
Beloved, guide us, protect us, and empower us
with your radical love
that troubles evil, that shakes the Empire,
that mends the world.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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…Turn these stones into bread…

…Standing there were six stone water jars
for the Jewish rites of purification….

…Let the one who is without sin
cast the first stone….

…Is there anyone among you who,
if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?…

…If these were silent
even the stones would cry out….

…Not one stone will be left here upon another;
all will be thrown down….

…Pilate sat on the judge’s bench
at a place called The Stone Pavement….

…The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone….

…Roll away the stone….


           Even the stones are alive and serve us,
           speaking of the grace of God.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             As he rode along,
             people kept spreading their cloaks on the road,
             saying, “Blessed is the king
             who comes in the name of the Holy One!
             Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
                         —Luke 19.36, 38

There was tumult in the city, a crowd.
He entered riding a donkey;
clearly he wasn’t a billionaire.
People stood along the road with signs
and cheered, or sang protest songs
against the Emperor, while, uptown,
the Emperor’s local enforcer, back from a golf trip,
also rode in, with the usual motorcade.
One couldn’t bow to both. It was one or the other.
The Pharisees saw exactly what was gong on.
“Teacher, order your disciples to stop.”
But there was no stopping them,
the voice crying out for deliverance
coming from the very earth.

Of course it would amount to nothing.
Soon the dissident would be arrested,
without a real trial, just a lot of accusations.
Encouraged by religious hardliners,
the governor, overnight, issued an executive order
that he be eliminated, and that was that.

Still, year after year we gather along that road,
singing our hopeful songs of deliverance
and waving our palms for a lost cause.
Year after year we’ll stand by as he’s executed.
We’ll betray and deny and kick ourselves afterward,
like we’ve scored a goal for the opposing team.

And then year after year we’ll go on, like onlookers,
like concertgoers, or maybe people who have
observed a video of some tribal initiation rite;
we’ll go on, pleased that he’s died for us,
but not really clear which side we’re on.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Go head, imagine the worst:
losing what you love, even everything,
the end of the world.
It’s only a matter of time,
as it always has been—
a moment away, or a millennium,
but always looming.

Let it be gone. Don’t skip over the grief
of taking seriously that all this is passing.
Mourn it fully. Let that pain be free,
as at a funeral.

But then after the service, after the luncheon,
the stories and the finger food,
you walk out to the church door and pause,
look out onto the street,
and consider how now to go on,
how to live in this present moment
with love and joy.

Death is behind you now,
even the loss you will keep on having
is behind you.
The world has ended.
But there are people to love.
Even in the end times
there are people to love.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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