Bright Sunday...Resurrection Recess

Sitting around the table over a bowl of soup with friends, we began reminiscing about recess time during our school years. Recess was a childhood right, a necessity for child and teacher alike. Children were set free from the confines of desk and schoolroom to run amok on the playground. Teachers were set free to sit and visit with their compatriots as we played. Fifteen-twenty minutes in the mid-morning and thirty glorious minutes in the afternoon gave us all time to stretch and breathe, a wonderful time outdoors.

Once in a great while a teacher might organize an activity but mostly we were left to our own devices. Four square, hop scotch, kick ball, red rover, tagyou’reit, kick the boy you love and run, jacks and marbles, crack the whip...we never ran out of things to do or places to play. The only reasons we missed our recess was if it was raining cats and dogs or if we were being punished as a class for some awful horrible transgression. Recess was a part of our daily routine until we left the eight grade and entered high school and had to take Physical Education.

Yesterday I was a part of a Bright Sunday worship, a remnant of the Feast of Fools from the Middle Ages. It can be celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter, traditionally Low Sunday in most evangelical Protestant traditions (low in attendance and sometimes mood), as well as Monday. Easter Monday is celebrated in many Greek and Slavic countries as a day of joy and laughter to honor the resurrection of Christ. The custom is said to date back to a sermon by the 5th century orator and Bishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom. He called Easter a cosmic joke that God played on Satan, surprising him by raising Jesus from the dead. The so-called “Bright Monday” tradition developed to celebrate that joke on the day after Easter. People would tell funny stories, play pranks and practical jokes, and laugh a lot. Whatever its origin or which day you choose to celebrate, it makes a lot of sense. The solemnity of Lent and Jesus’ passion culminates with the tremendous joy of Easter, so why not tell bad jokes, laugh and play, take a recess from the daily grind of life?

Bright Sunday at Alison’s church is bright indeed. Everyone wears bright (should I say tacky?) clothes. Hawaiian shirts, orange, purple, red, green, blue, multi-colored, stripes and florals... and everywhere a lightness of spirit joins a brightness of soul. As they enter into a community mission venture with a neighbor Mormon church, they are using Sunday morning to say what they believe individually and as a congregation. As an act of worship to flesh out their credos, we were asked to write on a small piece of paper one thing we believed about God, insert it in the balloon and blow it up. After all the balloons were blown up, we played bat the balloon until all the balloons had been relocated around the sanctuary. We were to take one balloon home, pop it and read what someone else believed about God knowing that none of us have the whole picture. Worship recess... foolishness... laughter that must gladden the heart of God even as the giggles of my grandsons makes my heart sing.

This will be my Bright Week as I carry the memory of Jesus death and resurrection in my heart, laughing as I do my daily chores, celebrating the foolishness that surrounds me. The chickens egg song, the woodpecker pecking, the donkey long faces, the frog song, the holy hilarity of life and death and life reborn in springtime. Did you hear the one about the Presbyterian Ladies Room? Taped to the hot air drier for wet hands was this notice... Press here to hear our pastor’s last sermon. (Told by a Presbyterian friend of mine). Yuk it up. Have a blast. Be a fool for Christ’s sake.