I have just come through one of the most amazing, powerful Maundy Thursdays of my life. Not only did we have our usual two services at Trinity but we had a full military honor funeral for a young man whose mother and sister/her family have been long-time members of the Trinity. (The other siblings are scattered and he never really lived in Boulder after the family moved up from New Mexico.) This 32 year old wanted to go to Iraq. After 9/11, he was so committed to doing something, he tried to join the Israeli army (he was living in Israel at the time) but had no Jewish blood in him anywhere in his ancestry and so couldn’t join. Even though he was in the Army and loved being in Iraq, he was more of a green tea drinking, bicycle everywhere Boulder hippie type. He had traveled the world doing all kinds of amazing things and was a witness to living life to its fullest no matter where you are or what you are doing.

Yesterday, under heavy guard, his body was brought to the church. Today, under heavy guard we had his funeral. The reason for the heavy guard was thanks to Fred Phelps and the Waynesboro Baptist Church crowd out of Kansas. If you want to have your stomach turned, go to godhatesfags.com. These people stood their legal 100 foot distance limit away, desecrating flags, holding up awful signs and saying vile things. The irony was, the 100 foot limit was on the corner of the Congregational Church caddy-corner from Trinity. First Congregational had hung out their gay pride sign and their safe zone signs! These people, while generating the negative press coverage they so crave, were standing under banners advocating gay rights!

The Patriot Guard surrounded the church. (We also had the entire police department around including the SWAT team on roofs across the street, the church parking lot and nearby streets shut down, and a fire truck and ambulance on stand-by.) The Patriot Guard are ex-vets and friends who protect military familes from protestors during funerals. These people stood in the cold for a long time, using American flags as shields and chanting the Pledge of Allegiance to block the view of and drown out the noise from the protestors. The irony was not lost on many of us: the kid in the box inside was part of a government that (so far) allows people to desecrate its flag and say vile things without fear of jail.

But the other irony that hit me was: how appropriate for Holy Week! The chaos, the shouting crowds, the “Roman soldiers” lined up to keep order. It hit me hard that if Easter isn’t not a victorious shout in the face of this kind of chaos and evil then we should shutter the church doors and all go home. I’ve never played “I Know that My Redeemer Lives” and “Lift High the Cross” with such a sense of shouting victory into the face of death and destruction. If the message of the Risen Christ can’t speak to the insanity that surrounded this funeral, then, as St. Paul says, we are of all people most to be pitied.

I still hate war; I still hate our current foreign policy but today I was again reminded of what it means to be an American. And even more so, I was reminded of what it means to be a Christian living in America. I hope I don’t forget this Maundy Thursday ever.