Dear People of St. James’,
I give thanks to God that Easter is not just one day, but a whole season – a season even longer than Lent! It usually takes me a moment to get into the spirit of Easter. Yes, the pandemonium of the day helps: the holy and sometimes unholy chaos of the Easter egg hunt, the flowers, the fancy Easter outfits, the loved ones gathered together. All of that jumpstarts my spirit. However, I find that I need a whole long season to really get into the work of Easter-ing. It is not an easy thing to proclaim an Easter faith – to proclaim that everything is different now because the Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Thank goodness for people in our St. James’ community who share that Easter faith with us and who let it work in them and motivate them to take on bold actions. Recently, the City Council voted to name the Bathhouse at Barton Springs for our own Joan Means Khabele. When she was a teenager, Joan led the swim-ins at Barton Springs, which would press the city to desegregate the pool and Zilker.
One time I asked Joan what gave her the courage to jump in that pool knowing the possible consequences, and she smiled, and said, “You know that song: He’s got the whole world in his hands?” I nodded. She said something like, “Well, if it’s true, and I believe it is, it didn’t make any sense for white people to believe that certain parts of the world, like Barton Springs or Zilker Park, belonged just to them.” For Joan, to live out the Easter faith was to live as though God has got the whole world in his hands, as though God loves every bit of that world and every person. The God who has got the whole world in his hands is a God who shows no partiality, but offers and hopes for life for all.
To live out the Easter faith then is to defy what James Baldwin calls “the great lie at the heart of American madness”: “that your life matters more than others.” How are we to be rescued from this madness to be restored to our right minds? I believe that we must take up God’s invitation to consider: What would my life look like if I lived like I believed in a God who has got the whole world in his hands? What new table of welcome would I set where I could share this good news? To whom would my witness to the impartiality of God take me?
As an Easter community, St. James’ lifts up and shares the stories of people like Joan Means Khabele who dared to live with the conviction that God has got the whole world in his hands. When we, with iACT open our doors to gather people from all corners and faiths from the Austin community to lament human tragedy and to seek hope together, we honor that God who is Love. When we sit down at table with our neighbors at Casa Marianella or Neighbor 2 Neighbor, or when we visit those who are sick or suffering from grief, we are living out that Easter faith that nurtures life.
May our Eastering embolden us to truly keep this feast, and may we be strengthened by the witness of each other when our imaginations are too small, our fearfulness too great, or our lives too busy. Let us come together again to be reminded that to keep a feast is to set a table where all can find life and peace.
Rev. Eileen
