At first glance, the Three Days’ Retreat scheduled to be held in Trappe, PA this past weekend seemed to have a similar feel to one I had attended in 2014, based on the same theme. We were to celebrate the Three Days — Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil — using the festival liturgy based on John, experiencing it all as one continuous service taking place within the span of a single day. I rode up to Trappe in the same car, with the same driver (Sharon Richter). The weather, however, seemed a bit more foreboding than what was forecasted two years ago, resembling a spring day to a much greater degree, so to speak. So, armed with my pan of frozen lasagna (as instructed for the pot luck), we parked the car and trudged through the rain into the main church building, where we were meeting in the parish hall.
What also made it different this year was that this was now a joint event with the folks from Gettysburg Seminary. Sharing and connecting seemed to happen almost as soon as we climbed into our respective carpools, continuing into our setup in the Fellowship Hall of Augustana Lutheran Church. One of my colleagues from LTSP was struggling to put together her sermon for the next day, and a student from Gettysburg was more than happy to walk through the Gospel reading with her, offering some very astute suggestions. I found it very heartening to witness this exchange, especially in light of the imminent changes to both seminaries.
Before we knew it, it was time to practice for the Maundy Thursday service. We walked over to the beautiful old church, taking care not to trip over the various stones embedded in the walkway. Each was marked with the name of a founding immigrant congregation, many from the German Vaterland, so this was very interesting. I tried to find hints linking me to the Black Forest and southern Germany, where my parents and ancestors were born.
After lunch, people began filing in for the service, all bundled up in their winter clothing, hats, and gloves. It was probably about 35 degrees in that old stone building, which, needless to say, had no heat. During lunch, there were slight murmurings regarding the foot-washing fro the Maundy Thursday portion. How this would be handled in the cold was anybody’s guess, but the leaders seemed to know what they were doing and set up for it as though it was that same spring day (65 degrees) two years earlier.
There is a quaint clock tower somewhere on the premises that chimes at every quarter hour. This is a nice way to mark the time — the Westminster Chimes chopped up into palatable quarters like four generous slices of pizza. I could go for having my time divvied up like this on a regular basis. We couldn’t help but mark the time as it chimed on the quarter-hours, and hearing this, sometimes interspersed with our singing, made the time fly. Since this was the second time I had attended this retreat, I sensed more of a flow now. The three services moved in and out of each other and it was, indeed, like a single service moving through the Three Days.
Another element of this experience was its sensual, experiential aspect. Yes, it was quite cold that day, and this will continue to loom large in our collective memory, but there is no substitute for meeting in a 300 year old chilly, damp, church with stark wooden benches and a cobblestone floor. It instantly transported us into a simpler time, when dealing with the elements was a much larger challenge than it is today, and hence, a much larger part of life itself. It illuminated and informed what was going on inside of us, and this was particularly prevalent at the Good Friday service, though it began on Maundy Thursday.
The first few hymns for the first service were rather tentative, as many participants seemed apprehensive about spending most of this day out here in a frigid church. The nervous energy increased somewhat as the foot-washing began. I never had any doubt that I wanted to participate, so I was one of the first to squeeze out of those narrow pews with the doors on them and sit out front. I wore my Ugg boots (barefoot in sheepskin boots), so taking them off was no big deal because I purposely didn’t wear socks. I was a tad bit afraid of my bum toe, which was taped to the next toe since I thought I had broken it a few days earlier.
None of this seemed to matter, because for me, it wasn’t about my own feet being washed. There was an older African American woman I had seen around campus previously but never met personally, and I got to wash her feet. Later she told me she had never experienced this before. The water was comfortably warm and it really felt great to have our feet washed, despite the cold. Truly, what felt even better was to be able to cradle this lady’s foot in my hand and pour the water over her feet and dry them off. It was a big step closer to community. The service ended differently from the way it began. We found a common purpose. WE were “gathered.” Yes, this happened earlier in a different way at lunch, but now we were gathered in a more ancient sense, through the common bond of our Christian faith.
I had the honor of taking part as a cantor for the Gospel (The Passion of Saint John), chanting the role of the crowd and other characters (known as the Sinagoga). Physically being transported to this very different location and portraying such a poignant story thrust all three of the cantors (Lorraine Cotter, Dr. Michael Krentz and myself) into an almost alternate universe for a time. Following this chanted Gospel reading was Jay Mitchell’s extremely poignant Sermon, in which he told the story of the Crucifixion through the lens of Mary, the mother of Jesus. His flashbacks to the early days of Jesus as a boy (while he was hanging on the cross, dying) showed a great sensitivity to her plight as Christ’s human mother. As he chanted the Solemn Reproaches, Dr. Michael Krentz was audibly moved. He choked up as he sang from the small balcony, “…but you have prepared a cross for your Savior,” which moved us all to tears. Between the chanted Passion, the Sermon, the Adoration of the Cross, and the Solemn Reproaches, we had all moved into a much more intimate space both together and individually. We were now connected to one another by virtue of sharing a deeper individual connection to Christ’s Passion.
Coming out of this, we took a break for dinner. In many ways it was a much-needed pause, because the Tenebrae service was so intense. When I was there two years ago, it was a lovely spring day and we were able to wander around the graveyard and look at the old headstones, some dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries. This year, however, the old cemetery was covered with an increasingly thick “dusting” of snow (on April 9, no less) which looked stunningly beautiful and incited different feelings that were no less contemplative. It just brought out other elements in a different way. I tended to see the snow-covered graveyard holistically — as a single, white, textured entity that stood for something greater than ourselves. The springtime cemetery, on the other hand, was something to walk through and explore, the damp grass something squishy to navigate through.
Before we knew it, sunset loomed, and it was time to begin the Easter Vigil. Since we couldn’t walk through the cemetery, we gathered on the steps of the Fellowship Hall and built the fire in the parking lot in front of it. Our gathering now felt different from the way we left Good Friday. We had now moved from being a community to being a unit, and what struck me were the folks from other traditions and how they seemed to have gone through a metamorphosis of sorts. At the beginning, their main concern (and all of ours, really) was staying warm, and there was this prevailing uncertainty about the whole experience. Now we stood together, clumped on the porch and steps of this building, lighting our individual candles, laughing, and chatting excitedly. Those who had never gone through this type of day were almost giddy in anticipation. I think they were ready for Easter, but this Vigil service surprised them. It was evident once the service began, and the Exsultet was being sung. Imagine a chanted Exsultet , peppered with “Yess” and “Amen!” It was truly rich to hear, and it catapulted us downstairs for the readings. All of the readings (Moses, Miriam’s Song, Nebuchadnezzar, the Fiery Furnace, among others) were punctuated by some very well-matched songs and percussion instruments such as rain sticks, Djembes, and a shruti box (think India and drones on a perfect fifth). The stories were all read so well, with charismatic and colorful flavor. The responses to each narrative were spontaneous and of the type you would hear in a Baptist church. It was worship of the engaged, connected kind. It was beautiful (but perhaps challenging for the reader) to see the lectern lit solely by the light of about a half-dozen candles.
We sang, we read, and the warmth in our hearts catapulted us forward and back upstairs, toward the path to the church, where we would stop at the font to remember our Baptism. All that fire! All those candles! And the cold! We could see our breath as we sang “Alleluia!” Then we were all sprinkled with clear, sparkling water! This moment, indeed, felt “new.”
Refreshed, we moved down the tiny aisle of the church, now completely dark in and of itself, but illuminated with close to 40 candles, if not more. We sang more Alleluias as we prepared for the Eucharist. This time we had all simply gathered around the Table, we did not sit in the pews. The music lent itself to movement and dancing. The Passing of the Peace was lively. For me, Communion was profound as this remarkable day came to a close.
I found a new bond with my brother Benson and washed the feet of an older lady I had never met before. I wept with Lorraine while freezing on an incredibly uncomfortable bench during Jay Mitchell’s sermon, I met a really nice guy from Gettysburg named Eric, took some incredible pictures of the stained glass windows at Augustana Lutheran, and had wonderful conversations with Sharon, Evelyn and Maggie on the drive to and from the retreat. It truly was an essential and unforgettable experience. Thanks be to God!
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