The women gather

 I ran across an Easter reflection from 5 years about an Easter morning spent cleaning the kitchen…

“As I scrubbed last night’s sheet pans, I wondered if this really was how I should be celebrating Easter, clad in a well-worn apron and wielding a soapy sponge. Or perhaps this is precisely how Jesus imagined the celebration as he knelt on the floor, a towel around his waist, washing feet. Women, up early to do the work of feeding the hungry and tending to the needs of the living and the dead. Women with the courage to stay in the face of unspeakable pain, and a scandalous death. Women with the courage to profess what they had seen, in the face of mockery and derision.”

which kicked off a search for a song I had heard from Sweet Honey in the Rock: The Women Gather. I could hear the spare repeating line in my head. “The women gather…” 

And the women still gather. To stand witness to the unspeakable. To accompany the undesirable. To bury the dead. To shelter their children with their bodies. To beg for peace.

We still gather at Easter — the women, the men, the children — even as we are embroiled in this “war of choice.” Though it not the choice most of us would have made. Our leaders demand we pray daily, “on bended knee” — in the name of Christ —  for military victory. I cannot. I will not. 

Yet. I will pray. For the courage to stand witness to the Gospel, that promises the utlimate victory, over sin and death, For an enduring and earned peace. Not one bought with blood and terror, awash in tears.

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The rest of the reflection is here. Listen to The Women Gather here.