Serious faith for misfits, lousy joiners, and other homesick souls
John’s body was less like mine than anyone else’s in the room. In that room full of people with some very unique bodies and abilities, that was saying a lot. Everything in this particular prayer service was going to have a lot to do with 
what bodies can and cannot do, and how we live with that. It was this night I found and answered a new question:, “How many bodies it take to wash two feet?” Answer: All of ours.
Throughout the western world the Wednesday before Easter is called,”Spy Wednesday.” It is a reference to the night Judas’ sold-out Jesus to the Roman 
authorities. It was the night that set the crucifixion into motion. For that he will always be remembered as one of the most evil figures of history. In some parts of the world on this night an effigy of Judas is thrown from high buildings or dragged through town while people throw sticks at it. He is blame worthy, cruel, and the farthest thing from our imagination we would ever want to be. Which is why it is so important for us to see where we relate to him.
In my church we most often confirm people on Easter Sunday. It was the tradition in the area I lived at that time to have a special service on the Tuesday before Easter when members of individual congregations would come to pick up 
oils blessed by the Bishop to bring back to their individual congregations. I eagerly volunteered and was selected to go and represent our congregation to get the oils. This particular service had a lot of meaning for me and I had been looking forward to actually participating in it for days.
When it came to the big day, I slept through it. I forgot it entirely.
It is springtime and it seems the hectic demands I usually have around Christmas are beginning to over take Holy Week as well. Besides my normal work obligations I have time sensitive art projects, volunteer work, some important events with my friends and of course, church services. I feel like I am waging my own personal war on Easter trying to figure out what the most Christian choices I can make are. I suspect that I am not at all alone in this. I find myself asking familiar questions about what Christianity is all, “about,”
Nearly every Palm Sunday sermon I heard growing up emphasized the inevitable hypocrisy of those who would be shouting Jesus’ praise on one day and crying 
“crucify him!” just days later. During these sermons I always pictured the crowds as wicked bearded villains (perhaps with pirate hats?).
I most certainly never pictured them being anything like me. That is why it was so confusing when, without any sense of irony, we all picked up Palm leaves and cried, “Hosannah!” just like those bearded hypocrite-pirates that we knew turned on Jesus later. I knew that there were sides but I lost track of whose side to be on. Sunday? Friday?
