Lipstick in a toolbox
Our connections to one another are often inexplicable, and are our shade of resistance in a cruel world.
My grandfather is my father figure. While we lost him to cancer in 2001, he continues to engage me. Often, it is through tools I get to use every day. A hammer with his initials stamped in the handle. A pair of pliers I remember him using to fix a broken drawer. A random screwdriver that is plenty long enough to reach into tight spaces and make adjustments on an electrical panel, or a furnace.
While the tools he left me have obvious uses, there were plenty of items he left me that puzzled me. Broken toilet parts are but one example. Why on earth would I need a dried out tank valve that has been half disassembled? A better question might be why on earth did I not only hang onto it, but move it - at least twice! There were broken Christmas ornaments, and more mugs than I could count. There were cheap cameras and promotional calendars from years before I was even born.
One significant gift grandpa left me was his toolbox, a wonderful, antique metal Craftsman box that has many drawers. These drawers were filled with minutiae. As I was going through his toolbox after he died I found many useful things but one item stands out. In one drawer, I found a tube of bright red lipstick. It did not make sense to me!
I really doubt my grandmother would choose to stash lipstick in my grandpa’s toolbox, alongside some old drill bits and random screws in that third drawer from the top. And while I make no judgments on who chooses to wear lipstick or why, I should note that my grandparents were married for 54 years and, by all signs and accounts, were as conventional as ever.
Why this random tube of pastel red lipstick? When I first found it, I just didn’t know what to do. So I did what must be ingrained in me - I didn’t throw it away. I held onto it, like my grandpa’s broken toilet parts.
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Holding on to objects that remind us of someone is a caring act. We want even but a piece of that person’s presence among us. In holding on to that piece of the person who has left us we acknowledge that there is something that connects us. Something we cannot see but we feel, deeply. There’s a connection we know exists even after the death of one we care about. It is one way love conquers death.
In this time Jesus spent with the Disciples before His arrest, prosecution and execution by the government, Jesus was preparing His friends for His death. Even though He was returning to His home with God, He wanted His friends to know they would have something that could help them to carry on the movement of love and justice He created.
It wouldn’t be a material presence but, rather, something intangible. Something spiritual. Something the Disciples would recognize in its ability to reveal the connections we have with one another, and with God.
But this “Comforter” sent from above would have to bring more than just warm fuzzy reminders of Jesus. Let’;s remember Jesus was about to be arrested, tried, prosecuted and executed by the government. Jesus was born and lived in the era of Pax Romana, the era of around 200 years when Rome had conquered its enemies. Pax Romana reflected an identity offered by the emperor Augustus just a few decades before Jesus was born. Augustus proclaimed himself “first citizen” after defeating Marc Anthony and Cleopatra and followed that defeat with promoting an image of stable government, and peace. The only problem was, that image of stability and thriving was built on stamping out anyone different, like Jesus and other ancient Jews.
Pax Romana was largely a propaganda tool. Pax Romana presented an image of military might that was uncontestable. Pax Romana presented an image of force and violence that dominated the people it conquered and ruled. Pax Romana existed under the leadership of its emperor figurehead who wielded brute force as a means of control. And as Jesus stood against this force and led Jews to remember that they were created in the image of God, those who looked to Him as their own figurehead of this new movement knew they risked losing their way once he was gone. Who would guide them to the places of love and inclusion they saw possible because Jesus was out in front? Once Jesus and His spirit had left them how would they know how to find their way?
If the followers of Jesus could no longer see Him healing the sick and mending the brokenhearted and reminding everyone of God’s love for God’s people, how would they know what or who might lead them? Would they look to Rome for guidance?
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you,” Jesus tells His friends.
Jesus is preparing His friends for something else to hold on to, that deeper connection we share with one another that can survive even death. Something that will appear to them and they will know it is of Him and His divinity. Something that they may not be able to really explain or understand but they will know, without a shadow of a doubt, reminds them of Jesus. A “Comforter” will remind them of the essence of the love and inclusion and welcome and healing they have witnessed, will come not just to show them the way, but to dwell among them.
It is a time of anticipated upheaval and pain for the Disciples. And Jesus tells them that as long as they keep His words, as long as they hold fast to what He has taught them in acts of love and compassion and welcome and service, they will have a home - a place of peace, regardless of who rules in Rome.
A home in God, even if they did not have a home in Pax Romana.
A home in one another, in being able to see in one another how the hope and promise of a living and loving God is carried on their hearts.
A home in perpetuity, in being part of a tapestry of love and friendship and peace that is bigger and greater than Rome’s might, bigger and greater even than death itself.
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” Jesus wanted His friends to know they would be able to see the promise of peace and hope in one another. And that peaceful presence would be revealed in how each of them kept His words; revealed in acts of compassion and service. He reminded His friends that they had tools to guide their way going forward, to “bring all things to your remembrance” even if they couldn’t explain it or really understand its presence yet.
***
This week I learned red lipstick - like the kind I found in my grandpa’s toolbox - has a long and storied history as a symbol of resistance. Suffragettes wore red lipstick in the early 20th century. As it was known to shock men, it became a sign of boldness and liberation from patriarchy. Women in World War II were known to wear bright red lipstick in symbolic resistance to fascism, as Adolf Hitler reportedly hated lipstick’s boldness against natural features. Red lipstick is making something of a comeback in countries where strong-willed leaders aim to curb globalism and deeper engagement with other countries. Leaders who claim things are going to be great while ignoring the injustice and dehumanizing tactics used on anyone who may be different.
The leaders in charge in Rome said everything was great. There was to be peace for every citizen in Pax Romana. But that wasn’t the case for everyone, especially Jews. Against the backdrop of empire Jesus wanted to create a world where all is on earth as it is in heaven. And he did this despite the violence and oppression upon which the notion of Pax Romana was based.
Jesus never wanted to be worshipped as a figurehead, like the Emperor in Rome. Jesus wanted us to follow Him in acts of love and care that could grow and spread to be stronger than any empire’s military might. Jesus knew if this movement of love and justice needed to survive His arrest, prosecution and execution. Jesus knew that the power of love with and among one another had to be stronger than any single figurehead, Himself included.
Jesus was building up the resistance to Pax Romana so that it would survive His death. In these final moments of His life Jesus wanted to make sure we knew that we can choose to make a different world than the one we are sold by politicians and military might. And we will recognize that new world not in the bluster of an emperor but in the love we carry in our hearts for one another. Even up to and including that inexplicable presence that connects us and unites us in ways that are universally human. The way objects like tools might connect us to people who have long left earth; that presence that we encounter in one another, that hope we see in one another is the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
We may not be able to explain the Spirit or its works. We may not always understand when and how the Spirit moves and leads us. But I would hazard a guess that each of us has encountered something loving and inexplicable that guides us on our way, something that belies the cruelty and violence of this world.
The presence of a friend at just the right time.
A material need met because of the generosity of another human.
The kindness of a stranger or the knowing connection you might see in another human who’s just trying to do their best.
That feeling we get when someone who may be gone, but whose presence is still felt in what we hold - either in our hands or in our hearts.
Jesus showed us the “how-to” in building the kind of world where every single human being can feel God’s love for God’s people. And He made sure we know that we will have the tools we need, even if He is not walking the earth among us to show us how to use them. Even if the tools might not make total sense, like that lipstick in my grandfather's toolbox.
Years after my grandpa died, I was watching the public TV program “This Old House.” It’s a show I have watched for decades. And so I nearly fell out of my easy chair one Saturday when I recall Tom Silva reaching for a tube of bright red lipstick when fixing the alignment of a deadbolt in a door frame. A little dab of lipstick on the end of the deadbolt can show us the mark of where the bolt will strike, the place where we need to focus our work in making sure a door aligns and locks properly.
In that instant, the puzzle of the lipstick in my grandpa’s toolbox suddenly made sense. It was something I did not understand in the moment in which I had found it but only later, when I saw its usefulness in the hands of someone else. It all made sense, then, after he was gone.
Jesus refers to the Spirit as “the Comforter.” And I find deep meaning in this, not just because it perfectly describes the feeling we experience when the Spirit is at work within and among us. It is not only a feeling of comfort and peace, but a feeling that emboldens us to be the presence of Jesus in the world.
Even in a world that regularly defines power in degrees of authority that point towards the ability to wield violence, I think it’s still possible for people to connect on a human level. Even people who live in the extremes of the world are still..,.people! And therein lies the mystery of the connections that are possible because of the Holy Spirit’s work within and among us. We might not understand those connections when they happen, or why. We have to have a little faith that the Comforter, the Spirit, has a purpose and a meaning that is not defined in Rome or Washington or any other seat of earthly power. And no matter what displays of force might be put on display for the world to see, no matter what we may encounter in earthly power, we must follow Jesus on the path that sets us apart. That path is marked not by a nation or a flag, but by the power of human beings to connect across all sorts of divides. The path Jesus leads us to follow is built upon the power of human beings to connect with other human beings, connections that can transcend most any divide.
Our connections to one another are often inexplicable. At times it may make as much sense as finding lipstick in a toolbox. But the mark it leaves is unmistakable. Not even death can take it away from our hearts.
A pleasure to read this morning. What a clever way to weave multiple elements together and tie them up into a bow! Thank you.
I just saw this yesterday!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKAeOdbStkA/?igsh=MXdzd28wZGl3MWZ3MA==